Ever wonder how fun it would be to choose a place to visit by opening a book to a random page and going?

For the past few years, Pat Desmarais and Robert Edsall of Bedford have done just that when choosing a place to kayak. The book “Quiet Water,” by John Hayes and Alex Wilson outlines the best places to kayak in New Hampshire and Vermont, and the Bedford duo hopes to go to as many of the featured places as they can.

Desmarais, now an avid kayaker, was not always a water person. But it didn’t take much to get her hooked.

“To get her into it, we bought some sturdy boats and once she saw some photo opportunities she was hooked,” said Edsall.

Both Desmarais and Edsall are professional photographers.

They met in 1989 at a photo shoot and have been together ever since. Demarais now has her own business called Great Impressions Photography in Manchester. She is also an artist who loves to paint nature, and is a member of the New Hampshire Professional Photographers Association and the New Hampshire Chapter of the Women’s Caucus for the Arts.

“The creativity both photography and art give you is something I love,” she said.

Edsall has the same passion for building wooden kayaks. As a boy growing up in Niagara Falls, New York, Edsall repaired his first boat that he and his father pulled out of an ice jam. “From that point on it just stayed with me,” he said. “I really don’t find anything more interesting than the forms and shapes of the boat.”

For the past several years, Edsall’s basement has been turned into a workshop where he builds a wooden boat every year in his free time.

Currently, he is building a rough water kayak in the Baidarka style. He started construction on his fifth kayak in November and hopes to have it ready by summer.

Desmarais and Edsall said paddling in a wooden kayak, compared to one built out of plastic, is like night and day. “People don’t realize how much easier it is to paddle and cut through the water,” said Desmarais.

This summer, the couple is looking forward to a 10-day kayaking trip to Virginia with about 10 friends.

“We try to take one big trip a year,” said Desmarais. “Our friends who come are mostly photographers and most of them have the book ‘Quiet Water’ now, too.”

Desmarais has two daughters, Nicole and Kate, and Edsall has two sons, Craig and Curt. Edsall also has five grandchildren, Ryan, Brett, Laura Lilly and Calvin and hope to someday get them all in his kayaks.

“Hopefully, I will build one kayak for each of my grandchildren before I’m done,” he said. “It’s my lifetime thing and I love it.”