Clad in wet suits and life preservers, 13 people stand in a circle near the largest lake at Busse Woods Forest Preserve outside Chicago. With kayaks laid on the grass between the shoreline and the pavement, members of the Chicago Kayak Club introduce themselves to the group. With dusk arriving in two hours, the veteran and amateur paddlers alike are anxious to get out on the water for the weekly Friday night paddle.

As introductions conclude, three women arrive and join the circle. Cynthia Gilbert, who works full-time as the club's lone organizer, addresses the group. A light blue bandana holds back her shoulder- length, wavy brown hair. "Henry will be our master guide for today's paddle," said Gilbert, motioning her hand toward Henry Nepomuceno. The group's gaze turns to Nepomuceno. He quickly responds, "I'm not used to this. No one listens to me at work!" After the laughter subsides, Gilbert looks over at the three late arrivals. "It's five minutes before six. Should we let them come out with us?" Normally, members must arrive promptly a half-hour before shoving off the shore to allow enough time to get properly dressed and pick out a kayak. But after a chorus of "Yes!" responses, some kayakers head over to Gilbert's sports utility vehicle full of equipment to suit up the latecomers. Others untie the last kayaks from the trailer and place them beside the others to hasten everyone's preparation for departure.

The Chicago Kayak Club provides essential equipment, including the use of kayaks, as a right of membership. On each outing a member can try different kinds of kayaks, from the wider, stable types to the faster, narrow types. "It's like looking at two bikes," Gilbert explains. "If you want to buy a kayak, you can get a feel for the kind you like." The club hosts weekly outings, holds classes and travels to locations such as Alaska and the Mississippi River. Gilbert does nearly all of the organizing herself.

After growing up in rural Ohio without much access to water sports, kayaking intrigued Gilbert. She started occasionally renting a kayak on business trips. Gilbert moved to Chicago and saw the lack of activities on Lake Michigan as a squandered use of natural resources. Soon Gilbert became obsessed with the sport, regularly kayaking in the morning before her job. "It felt like you had already accomplished something by the time you started to work," Gilbert says.

When Gilbert established the club three years ago, her life changed completely. She quit the business world, where she had been a futures and options trader, in favor of what she came to consider a more personally and communally rewarding pursuit. In the transition, Gilbert gave up most of the amenities from her previous lifestyle.

For most members, the current communal system is nearly flawless. In the cramped Chicago area, it's the only practical way to promote kayaking for a broad range of people. Many members cannot afford the expense of buying all the gear needed to kayak. Others are happy to avoid the stress of taking care of one, especially since they often come to paddle straight from work. "I could pay $60 for a membership or pay for two $1,200 kayaks," says Andrew Kirby, a 29-year-old software engineer who kayaks with his wife. "Then I'd have to carry them around and store them somewhere."

Instead, Gilbert fulfills this privilege for members, often at the sacrifice of a personal life away from kayaking. The group trips are a short two or three hour escape for most members, but Gilbert turns in 12 to 14 hours per day between teaching classes and attending every event. "My whole life has become a kayak," Gilbert confesses to me while driving to Busse Woods. Her vehicle embodies those sentiments: the back seat and trunk covered in vests, spray skirts and paddles; the smell of dirty water, sweat and wet suits emanated from the carpeting; the trailer with 17 kayaks hitched to the bumper.

Luckily, Gilbert and the members of the club share a similar good- natured humor and kindness that helped the kayak club grow as a friendly network. It's become a social hub, a training group and a community-oriented volunteer organization. Ever since the Chicago Kayak Club adopted Skokie Lagoons in 2004, members volunteer for clean-up days to keep the area free of litter. In addition, Gilbert teaches introductory, intermediate and advanced classes nearly everyday at Skokie Lagoons to subsidize the costs of buying new equipment. On occasion, Gilbert and another experienced kayaker will instruct groups, such as Boy and Girl Scouts, for free. In an arrangement with the Evanston Police Department's Social Services, members instruct and paddle with troubled youth on a weekly basis.

Their commitment to the community did not go unnoticed by the Evanston Police Chief, Frank Kaminski. Once notified by Kaminski that the group had won his personal award for community service last year, club members decided to accept the award at Tommy Nevin's Pub in Evanston. Little did they know that Nevin's had recently closed for allowing underage adults to drink alcohol, and the management would be wary of police. "The police chief came walking in and over to our table," Gilbert says, remembering the initial scared looks on the Nevin's manager's face. "You just knew the managers were cursing 'kayakers!'"

Of course, Nevin's is not the only hangout. Members have met at Chicago's Black Beetle, described as a "local neighborhood place that's kind of funky," for social gatherings and for a fundraising dinner to fight Leukemia. (Even the bartender helped to sell raffle tickets.) During the Kayak Christmas Party last year, members were treated with an end-of- the-year highlight reel of the club's best moments and sights from all its events. Every time out kayaking, Gilbert shot a few minutes of video footage. That trend has continued as a way to record gags and reflect on the accomplishments of the year.

In its three-year history, members kayaked the Mississippi River and Lake Superior as well as many local destinations. Most recently, the club ventured to Devil's Lake State Park in Wisconsin over Memorial Day Weekend, followed by an overnight full moon campout at the Skokie Lagoons in June. They are currently planning a trip to Alaska in August.

In order to prepare for the longer, more strenuous kayaking trips, many members train in Lake Michigan where the strength of the waves can test a paddler's skills. "If you watch the waves, there'll be a pattern when you go out," Gilbert instructed a newer member. The group left the shore together and paddled leisurely along the lake's shoreline, like a relaxed school of fish, as sunset approached. After the paddlers looped back to the Wilson Boat Launch, most remained near the shore since, according to Gilbert, "It's a great place to practice because it's so shallow." In addition to learning balance and gaining strength, "practice" is Gilbert's hint to have members attempt a wet exit out of their kayak when it tips over. It's better to learn and become an expert out here when everyone's around in shallow water rather than in the middle of Alaska, Gilbert says. By the end of the Lake Michigan sessions, every paddler submerged except one who drew a few friendly teases. On the trip to Devil's Lake, members decided to help one another practice wet exits by jumping on kayaks to tip people out and get them wet.

Detached from modern society, the serenity and silence of kayaking along the surface of a lake--accented by flowing water, bird calls and social interaction among the paddlers--is deeply rewarding to members. "Sitting right on the water, you feel like a part of the ocean," reflected Mike Moody, a 31-year-old swimmer who started kayaking in the last year.

The kayaking experience challenged lifelong Chicago resident Chris Sheiden physically and mentally, but left her "very engaged spiritually, as if one with nature." Sheiden says, "I've never had a bad day paddling. But even a bad day paddling is better than a good day of almost anything else." And this love comes from an exuberant 53-year-old who picked up the sport only a year ago. One morning before work in 2005, Sheiden saw kayak classes on Lake Michigan. She loves the water, but never thought that kayaking could exist in Chicago. "I went back to the office, looked it up online and saw there was a class at noon. I said, 'Well, I better take a half day off!'" Sheiden says. "Then I showed up in business casual."

As dusk approaches, members carry the club's kayaks up the beach and tie them to Gilbert's trailer. There is talk of going out to eat, but most everyone is tired and wet from Lake Michigan's waves. After a half hour of collective work to tie up the kayaks for the trip home--along with the collecting, bagging and throwing of equipment into the Chicago Kayak Club vehicle--Gilbert says, "I joke around with students that this is the sport of kayak wrangling." Gilbert enjoys living out the joke--even with the work of organizing classes and drying out still ahead of her this evening--because her efforts provide a friendly community for people who never could have expected to meet on the water of the Windy City.