A New Age: St. Pete's Fountain of Youth

It's hard to sit still in St. Petersburg, an oversize playground accessible by land and sea. Though the city's beaches tempt with their soft white sand, I figured I could veg out when I'm too old to do anything but. Moreover, I was curious about trying KaYoga.

Tim Ganley created this activity as a way to combine exercise and the natural environment: For $40, participants kayak to a remote island off St. Pete, perform yoga on the beach, then hop back in the kayak for a strong finish.

Our party of four put in at Tierra Verde, a busy waterfront community a few miles south of St. Petersburg. After clearing the harbor, we entered an idyllic sanctuary of bays and barrier islands where people come to party and protected birds go to roost. The paddling was easy, and there was no fear of drowning: At some points, the water level struggled to reach the wrist of my submerged hand. Because it was low tide, we had to drag our boats across short stretches of sand -- certainly not for the feeble-armed. Our feet sank in muck that squished like warm caramel, soothing at first, then just gross.

We grounded our boats at Shell Island, a finger of state parkland quiet except for the faint twitter of birds. I laid out my towel-cum-yoga-mat near the shoreline, with a semi-clear view of the Gulf of Mexico. (Ganley's head was in the way.)

Ganley started us off with some simple stretches.

"Look left," he instructed. A pair of pelicans.

"Look right." The cityscape of St. Pete Beach.

"Look up." Blue sky, with a scattering of puffy clouds.

"Look down." Hey, I found an unbroken sand dollar.

Emptying my mind just was not going to happen.

"It's not for serious practice," conceded Ganley. "We're usually having too much fun, and people talk and joke around."

After nearly an hour of torquing, twisting and posing like barnyard animals, Ganley told us to get into the corpse position. Lying on my back, with the setting sun casting its waning rays on my face, I realized that there is a fine line between this yoga move and sunbathing.

We stayed silent for many minutes, until I suddenly got the strange feeling that the group had crept off and paddled away, leaving me stranded on the beach. I sneaked a peek through half-shut eyes and saw Ganley looking perfectly still. Suddenly, he snapped alert and came back to life, ready to lead us back to St. Petersburg.