Lisa Aurecchia, program director for the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, and her friend Mark Miller, of Providence, portage past the Omega Pond dam. Below, a cormorant flies over the Seekonk River.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

The invitation for the inaugural paddle of a new Roger Williams Paddle Trail from the middle of East Providence to downtown Providence was somewhat difficult to comprehend at first.

Paddle on what? Where’s the water?

Even as the launch site, the tiny, Freedom Green park in East Providence, became covered with kayaks and canoes yesterday morning, the questions remained. Where is the paddle trail?

Fortunately, these kayakers, members of a relatively new statewide group called the Rhode Island Blueways Alliance, knew where they were going.

At the back of the park flowed the shallow, brown waters of the Ten Mile River. Many of the kayakers had paddled only upstream from the park, to places with deep woods, deer and a huge snapping turtle.

But yesterday about 16 kayaks and canoes headed downstream, under the leadership of Keith Gonsalves, who heads the Ten Mile River Watershed Council and is a leader of the Blueways Alliance.

As the boats passed under Broadway, trucks and cars roared by overhead. But a few minutes later, it became so quiet you could hear a frog croak.

Instead of traffic, there were docks and boats and overhanging trees.

As the group crossed Omega Pond, Gonsalves gave history lessons. The group was following the path taken by Roger Williams in 1636 as he fled the Massachusetts colony and traveled to what is now Providence, seeking religious freedom.

At the far end of the pond, you could hear the water pouring over the 12-foot-high Omega Pond Dam. Each year, people gather to net spawning herring and heft them over the dam. Plans call for construction of a fish ladder.

But yesterday, the boaters pulled over next to the dam and hauled the kayaks and canoes up over the railroad tracks and down the other side, to the Seekonk River. Some paddled over to the base of the waterfall to enjoy the spray.

This stretch of river is wide and tree-lined. It looked more like the New Hampshire Lakes Region than metro Rhode Island.

Downriver, near Gano Street, Gonsalves pointed to the shoreline where he said Narragansett Indians welcomed the arrival of Williams with the salutation, “What cheer, netop.”

Netop was the Narragansett word for friend.

Yesterday, the shoreline was a jumble of concrete slabs, rusty steel and shopping carts.

Gonsalves said boaters would like to have more public access along the river here so local people could reconnect with the water.

W. Michael Sullivan, director of the state Department of Environmental Management, and his wife, Mary, took part yesterday. Sullivan initiated the alliance two years ago by suggesting that the DEM broaden its efforts to create walking and bike trails to support more use of local waterways, which historically were the key way of traveling.

The Rhode Island Rivers Council and the National Park Service provided support. Earlier this summer, the alliance sponsored a series of paddles around Rhode Island.

It also created a Web site, www.exploreri.org., that offers maps of boat launches and ramps, as well as links to commercial outfitters and other trail associations and watershed councils.

Also on the trip was Drew Bennett, a blogger and photographer who paddled with a video camera on the bow of his kayak.

Bennett said it is important to get outside and away from his computer, so he started a blog about one of his hobbies at www.wiredkayaker.com.

Bennett said he planned to have a video of the Roger Williams paddle up in a few days.

The wind picked up as the boats rounded India Point Park and made their way through the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier. Under the bridges along the Providence River, vast piles of wood were stored for last night’s WaterFire.

Not far up the Moshassuck River, at Roger Williams National Memorial, park ranger John McNiff told the paddlers they had just recreated Williams’ historic trip to found Providence.

Instead of narrow rivers, Williams found a vast cove, Kniff said, where oysters were a foot across and lobsters could be harvested by hand. And when 60- and 70-pound salmon spawned, they were so thick some said you could walk across the river on their backs.

“All of these resources were in one spot here, and the Narragansetts gave them to Roger,” said Kniff. “It was a historic trip. And you guys have just recreated it.”

Not precisely.

Yesterday’s kayakers had to get out of the river in front of the Rhode Island School of Design. Upstream, walls and rock piles made it impossible to get ashore.

Gonsalves and Sullivan said they would work on that. They hope one day to have Bluewater Alliance accessways and water trails throughout the state.

plord@projo.com