By Theo Helms

Several years ago, the Marsh Creek Kayakers journeyed across northern Florida to paddle the Withlacoochee North River. Our dearly departed friend, Peter…aka Pedro Spiller, was with us on that trip. The photo below shows Pedro carrying his large canoe, single handedly, down the launch ramp with one hand, while holding a beer in the other! That photo is a true testament to Pedro’s indomitable spirit. Many of us offered to assist him with the canoe carry, but Pedro would always say…”No thanks. I’ve got it.” He wasn’t showing off. He just knew how to carry that big canoe and I think he wanted to continue to do it as long as he could. But I digress.

Soon after that photo was taken, we all took to the river for our paddle. Just downstream from the launch, I saw a bottle floating up against a pile of brush along the bank. I am known to pick up a lot of items from the water on our paddles in order to help keep the river clean so I paddled over to retrieve the bottle. It appeared to be a whiskey bottle and it was embossed with the words “Canadian” all along the sides. I had never seen one like it and so I paddled over to Pedro to show it to him. He had never seen one like it either and we both thought it quite unique. Pedro and I have each paddled many miles in Canada and we were amazed that we could discover a Canadian whiskey bottle in a Florida river that we didn’t recognize. Pedro said I should keep it, and so I did. That bottle is pictured below.

As you might have suspected, the story continues. Our good friend Pedro passed away several years later. I was able to get some of Pedro’s ashes in order to put them into some of his favorite waterways. We called it “Returning Pedro to the Water”. I had no trouble deciding what vessel to use for his ashes. That Canadian whiskey bottle was perfect for it. We’ve returned Pedro to some of those rivers and waterways and we plan to do a few more. We recently traveled to the Georgia state line to again paddle the “With North”, and we all agreed that Pedro should go with us on that trip. The photo below shows Pedro being returned from that very whiskey bottle to one of his favorite rivers.

On the second day of our latest paddle down the river, the weather was absolutely perfect and we were so excited to be on the water after taking a year off due to the Covid pandemic. Coincidentally, it would have been Pedro’s 78th birthday on that very day. So we were all thinking of him as we paddled. While we paddled, one of our newer members of the club had asked me about Pedro because he never had the chance to know him. I was happy to tell him a little bit about my friend and it was nice to think about him and remember the time we found that whiskey bottle. About a half hour later, I saw another bottle floating in the river very close to my kayak. Normally, I have to paddle over to retrieve bottles and cans near the shore, but this one just floated right up beside me. I immediately recognized it as an exact match of the other one. I could hardly believe my eyes. I fished it out of the river, stopped paddling, and sat there feeling connected to my friend Pedro once again. The photo below shows both bottles side by side…the older one on the left and the newer on the right.

You may draw your own conclusions about that experience and what it may signify. I have mine. But one thing is certain. Every single one of us felt Pedro’s presence on that day, at that time, on that river. Good work Pedro!