Just after midnight on Sunday, June 22, four men slipped into the open waters of the Atlantic on racing paddleboards. They launched from the shores of Bimini, Bahamas, pointed toward Florida’s Atlantic coast, 80 miles away, as part of a relay known simply as The Crossing.

The distance—about the same as paddling from downtown Sarasota to downtown Tampa—has each team member taking shifts through the night, pushing through wind, waves and open current for hours at a time.

The team, Westway, counts Sarasota-based brothers Brandon and Travis Taaffe; their surfer friend, Sarasota-based James Brearley; and Michael Barron of Rome, Georgia. For the Taaffes, this year's Crossing is a second attempt. Last year’s was canceled due to weather.

This time, they made it.

By day, the Taaffe brothers work as attorneys at the Sarasota office of Shumaker, where they specialize in securities and commercial litigation. But Brandon’s roots are in the water. A former competitive rower with Sarasota Crew, he now trains on Phillippi Creek before work and surfs when he can. Paddleboarding, he says, sits squarely between those two worlds. “These boards are long and narrow—14 feet, built for racing,” he says. “It’s a cool mix of balance and power.” 

The Crossing is more than an athletic challenge. It’s the signature event of the Piper’s Angels Foundation, a nonprofit founded by Jupiter, Florida-based Travis Suit after his daughter Piper was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF) at age 4. The paddle, now in its eighth year, raises money and awareness for CF, a progressive genetic disease that affects the respiratory and digestive systems, causing mucus to build in the lungs, and making it difficult to breathe and easy for infections to take hold. Roughly 40,000 children and adults live with it in the U.S. today, and while life expectancy has improved with advances in treatment, the disease remains incurable.

One of the few natural treatments known to help ease symptoms is exposure to salt air, an effect discovered when surfers with CF in Australia were found to have better lung function than their peers inland. That connection gave Suit a place to start.

“We discovered that the ocean—saltwater—was really beneficial for Piper,” he says. “That’s why I started taking her paddleboarding. I could’ve never imagined it would lead to something like The Crossing.”

Today, Piper’s Angels Foundation provides support to hundreds of CF families annually, from emergency financial assistance to peer mentoring, home air cleaning services and access to mental health and mindfulness programs. In some cases, the foundation also funds travel for medical care. “It’s a rare disease community,” Suit says. “But a small organization can make a big impact. And we’re always listening to the families.”

Piper, now 17, has become the event’s symbolic center and speaks about her condition. “It’s not something you can see or measure from the outside,” she says. “One day you’re fine, and the next you’re in the hospital. There are a lot of layers to it. It’s complex and hard to explain.”

Though she acknowledges The Crossing’s roots in her own diagnosis, she’s quick to deflect the attention. “It’s not so much for me,” she says. “I’m in a good place, health-wise. It’s for others who are still struggling, and about building a community around that.”

The Taaffes, Brearley and Barron met Suit and learned about the Piper's Angels Foundation after last year's attempt at The Crossing. This year’s event drew about 200 participants. Some paddled solo. Others, like Team Westway, tackled the miles as a relay, taking turns navigating the currents. The team stocked a boat with 20 gallons of water, energy bars, Gatorade and three rotisserie chickens for the finish. 

“We just saw the race on Instagram and decided to try it,” Brandon says of the reason the group decided to participate. “But after coming down and learning what families go through, it really stuck with us.”

Their team raised funds through a GoFundMe page, with proceeds going directly to the foundation. For Taaffe, the experience blurs the line between athletic challenge and personal growth. “On one hand, it’s a great physical thing to do,” he says. “But more importantly, it’s a great organization. We’re proud to be part of it.”

“With CF, you don’t get to choose. This journey across the ocean is very much symbolic of how we face adversity,” he continues. “Courage isn’t born out of comfort. It’s revealed in our hardest, most painful moments.”

Piper, for her part, draws strength from her past. “Even when it gets tough,” she said, “I look back to where I was when I was younger. Things are so much better now.” She also offers advice to others with CF: “Own it as you are. We’re special, not weaker or lesser. And we’re here for something more.”