By Larissa Zimberoff

If not for the San Francisco Chronicle, Liz Kantor might never have rowed on the bay. This was around 1988. Her friend read an article announcing a new rowing center opened by Shirwin Smith and said: Let’s learn to row. Liz, a physician, was in her 30s at the time. With that they signed up for the novice training program. That old beginner boat, a Pacific 18, is gone with the wind but its memory holds strong.

A few decades later, Liz still lives in San Francisco, and still rows weekly at Open Water Rowing Center. She has her own boat now, an Aero. If you’re an early riser you’ve seen Liz. Her hair is cropped short, she’s quick to smile and she’s almost always in a brilliant orange top over black tights. “I wear the flashiest colors I can find to ensure that I’m visible on the water." She appreciates the calm and quiet of those early mornings. Sunrise over Sausalito probably doesn’t hurt either.

Liz’s favorite row is to Point Cavallo, around the corner at yellow bluff in view of the Golden Gate Bridge. “I love the uninhabited stretch after the sewage plant and enjoy watching the shoreline.” If the wind and water are too rough, she’ll turn north after going to Spinnaker and head to the freeway overpass or the Audubon ranch.

Photography by Scott Kozinchik

What is it about rowing that captures our minds and propels us out of bed in the early hours of the day? She jokes: “I can’t swim 100 meters without gasping. Rowing really works for me.” Then she rattles off a few of the words we associate with rowing: satisfying, reflective, Zen.

But rowing isn’t her only passion. “I row and take very long walks. Like epic walks,” she tells me with a laugh. “Last year I walked the coast of Portugal from south of Lisbon past the southwest point at Cabo de San Vicente.” (About 120 miles in 10 days.) When Kantor isn’t walking or rowing out of Sausalito, she’s packing a bag and heading out on one or two rowing trips a year. “I’ve been on so many bodies of water rowing,” she says. France, South Africa, Martinique, Belize, Turkey, Portugal, the Maldives, Tasmania, Scandinavia, and beyond. “It’s so spectacular, and a marvelous way to meet people.”

Her next trip is to Vancouver Island. Want to row the world? She'll be happy to share how to get started.