n a message dated 12/4/99 8:06:10 AM Eastern Standard Time, HenryHast_at_aol.com writes: > Yes, it was Murden. She just landed on Guadeloupe after 81 days. She's the > first woman to cross the Atlantic paddling solo. You can read the NY times > article on it by going to > http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Rowing-Quest.html murden's is an accomplishment beyond what any/most of us can imagine. i attended last month's annual conference of the american alpine club where mountaineering greats like brad washburn, arlene blum and conrad anker spoke about their journeys, adventures and discoveries--their presentations were fascinating and inspiring. do kayakers have a comparable organization where the greats and the near-greats come together and share their experiences? i mean, what a wonderful evening it would be to sit and listen to tori murden talk about those 81 days . . . amigh m *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
I haven't used the kayak much since it got evicted from its summer home in the garage, and relegated to the storage building for the winter. It sat there a little forlorn as I opened the door with a load of boxes to be stacked alongside it. Since I'd have to move the kayak and trailer out to put the boxes away, and it was a reasonably nice day, well, why not? The water has chilled down considerably since the last time I was out, but it was a calm day, warm, with a nice south breeze, if mostly overcast. Since I was only marginally dressed for the water temperature, I decided that I'd pretty much keep within walking distance and walking depth of shore, just in case. I didn't really have a lot of time -- there was still a dump run to make and a Christmas tree to trim -- so I decided to follow the south shore for a mile or two, then turn back. I didn't want to go particularly fast or far, due to being out of practice, and I didn't need the muscle aches that would result from overdoing it. The boat actually felt a little tippy as I got into it, which showed that I hadn't been using it much; there's been too much to do to get ready for winter. I knew I'd lose the feeling of tippiness before long. The tippiness was amplified by the fact that the gentle breeze had set up some four-inch waves right on my beam as I followed the shore southward, listing to the lap of the water on the rocky beach only a few feet beyond the end of my paddle. As the boat began to feel more natural, I looked around. It didn't seem like the same lake I'd paddled so much over the course of the summer. The leaves are all gone, now, and the trees stand dark and naked, starkly silhouetted against the gray of the December sky. A peninsula that had been lush and green all summer was now just a dark brown fingernail in the diffuse, dingy light. The place seems nearly empty, deserted by man and beast, but the quiet of the day was welcome. The lake is down, and has been since midsummer. Down by the dam it was clear just how low the lake was, since the trash rack sat atop a control stucture with a foot and a half of concrete showing. A woodpeckerish looking bird sat on the edge of the trash rack, and once again I found myself wishing I'd brought the bird book. The surface of the lake was empty of birds, unlike many other lakes and ponds around here. The little farm pond across the road from the entrance drive was filled with geese, but they're hunted here, so rarely show up, and the hunters have learned and rarely show up, either. It's a little disappointing, as often this time of year the lakes feature huge rafts of migrating waterfowl, and some species that we rarely see around here, but that was apparently not going to be a treat for today. I skimmed past the campground, almost running aground a couple times, even though I pretty much knew where the shallow spots were. The lakeside campsites were all empty, for the first time in I don't know when. There was even someone there when I paddled past last February. That there was someone around was underlined by the barking of a couple of dogs, followed by a shotgun blast, close enough to give me a start. Deer season is over with, and I thought that upland bird season was, as well, but I guess rabbit hunting has begun. I paddled on down the shore, to the narrows that is the gate to the western part of the lake. I'd planned to turn around here, but off in the misty gray-brown distance I can see the entrance to my favorite spot on the lake, the little, shallow bay that gets so much goose nesting in the spring. I really have work to do, but who knows when I'll get out on the water again? Every trip this time of year stands a good chance of being the last one until spring. Oh, well -- I could trim the tree after dark, after all. Still, it's better to skim the shore than to take the direct route I usually take in the summer. Up in the brush, I see a small pile of cans and bottles, in a place that's usually leafed over, and I make a mental note to come and pick it up -- it's in a place that's easier to get to on foot than out of the boat. The DNR doesn't have enough money to keep the more remote parts of the lake picked up, and there are several of us regular kayakers and fishermen that take an extra effort to keep the place clean -- we consider it part of the price that we pay to have a place that's free of jet skis all summer. Farther on down, I have to cut across the mouth of a bay. It's a couple hundred yards, and mostly shallow except for where an old drainage ditch used to run, but it's the farthest that I'd been from shore all day, so far. In the middle, I see a small raft of carp, their mouths slurping the water surface, eating algae or something. I saw a lot of these carp rafts a year ago, but this was the first one this year, making me wonder a little. An earthy smell assaults my nostrils for a few seconds -- someone must be spreading manure not far upwind. I stayed fairly far from shore the next half mile, but in a foot or less of water, sometime so shallow that I couldn't get the full blade under the water. Shortly, I was at the mouth of the bay I've been heading for, and discovered that the water was actually up a little -- I'd been out there times this fall to see birds walking on the sandbar across the mouth of the bay. It seemed doubtful that I could make it in there, but after coming this far, I knew I'd have to go so see. Gently, I eased forward toward the spot that I knew to be the deepest, even if only by a little, and the closer I got to the shallowest part, the more I believed I could make it. I could feel the stern of the kayak drag on the sand a little, but by then I figured that I could push myself the rest of the way across, so dug in with the paddle. In a few yards, the sand released its gentle grip on the stern, and I was into the bay. Usually, the waters of the bay are pretty muddied by the carp, but now I could see every detail of the bottom. The fact that that bottom is only a foot or a foot and a half away did help, though. But, the place is empty and quiet, like everything else. In the spring and summer, this is a favorite spot to come and sit and watch birds and fish and wildlife, but except for a couple of small black and white birds that I don't recognize poking around on exposed bottom, there's nothing much happening, but it's a time of the year when I wouldn't expect much to happen. I leaned back in the kayak for a rest, looking forward to the time in, oh, April or May, when I can come out here and spend hours dazzled by all that's going on around me. But, that's still a ways off. There's a winter to be endured, first, and the kayak will set lonely in the storage building for many a cold, dim day, and I'll be dreaming of the warmer weather, the return of the geese, and the promise of spring. Finally, I turned to go, to sneak back along the shoreline the way I came. It would have been nice to have stayed a while longer, but there's still a dump run to make and a tree to trim. ---------------- FYI, there's more of these kayaking essays and stuff on my web page: http://www2.dmci.net/users/wesboyd/kayak.htm -- Wes *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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