First Paragraph
The sea has gone the color of old silver, its surface as smooth as a wave-worn shell. It’s an hour before dawn on this −12°C (10°F) day in January at Rhode Island’s Beavertail State Park, a 153-acre rocky promontory shaped like a beaver’s tail. Beavertail juts out from the southern end of Conanicut Island into Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.