Like stars on the water, kayaks glow in Onset

Sep 12, 2024

Blue, purple and green lights twinkled across the water of Onset Bay on the night of Thursday, Sept. 12 as a little over a dozen kayaks, canoes and paddle boards made their way around Wickets Island.

Stuart Downie, the Buzzards Bay Coalition’s vice president of outdoor exploration, followed the glowing paddlers in a boat, documenting the excursion.

Thursday marked the second glow-in-the-dark paddle hosted by the Buzzards Bay Coalition this summer.

According to Downie, he hopes that this event and others like it give people “a love for the water, [Buzzards] Bay and the health of it.”

And even though the weather has been getting colder, and the season slowly changes to fall, this excursion is a “really fun way” to “keep people on the water as long as possible,” said Onset Bay Center Manager Angie Weldon.

“We were looking for something different to do, something that people may have never tried before, we thought this would be a nice way to celebrate the end of summer,” said Weldon.

She added that the Buzzard Bay Coalition’s main goal is “access to the bay.”

“We want people to come down here [and] have a great time on the bay so that they grow to care about the bay and look after it,” said Weldon.

Diane Franklin, a Wareham native who now lives in New Bedford, has a long relationship with Onset Bay.

“I grew up in Wareham so I spent a lot of time on this beach,” she said. “I just started kayaking this year and thought this would be a fun experience.”

Franklin added that she “always [comes] back” to Onset Bay. “I actually took swimming lessons here when I was a kid. I think I’ve been on this beach since I was seven years old.”