[Paddlewise] Forgotten joys

November is probably my least favorite month of the year. It's usually cold
and dark and damp and gray, the leaves are down, and there's no doubt that
summer is gone and the cold, hard months of winter lie ahead.

But not every November day is nasty; sometimes, it's warmish, and the sky
is a clear blue jewel. When you get a day like that, it's valuable for
those inevitable chores of buttoning up for winter.

That's what I was doing this Saturday afternoon -- I was up at the storage
shed, clearing away space so I could get the trailer and one of the sea
kayaks in for the winter. My daughter and her college room mate had decided
to stash their bikes in the storage shed for the winter, and I had to do
something with them, since they would block the space the trailer used. I'd
gone up there to see if I could figure a way out of it, but, being a
paddler, I was agonizing over the missed opportunity; a day not on the
water this time of the year is a day gone forever.

I opened the door of the storage shed, and there sat the Tornado, sitting
lonely on the floor. I bought the battered whitewater boat last winter
cheaply, mostly for the occasional time that I might want to do a small
river or a carry-in pond that was too much of a hassle for an 18-foot sea
kayak. The guy I'd bought it from had used it as a creek boat and had
boofed it a lot, so it has scratches in places you wouldn't normally expect
a kayak to be scratched. I really haven't used it much, and it had gathered
a lot of cobwebs over the summer. I looked at it and realized I ought to
get out in it at least once before winter set in, and I had what seemed to
be the perfect solution.

Down the hill from my house is a swampy pond that's mostly brush and
duckweed in the summer, but the colder weather and fall rains had raised it
up, and the leaves were off the brush. It'd be easy enough to go and throw
the Tornado in the pond and mess around for a half hour. It wouldn't blow
the afternoon away, but at least I'd be out on the water a little.

I had some tiedown straps in the van with me, and it was only the work of
minutes to have the blue Prijon on top and be heading down the road. I
stopped in at the garage to grab a paddle, and looked down the hill toward
the swamp, now with a closer look. It looked pretty gunky and muddy back up
in it a ways, and I began to wonder if it was more trouble than it was
worth. Since I was already loaded up, I got a better idea.

Down near Lake Hudson, my favorite paddling area, there's another little
lake I had never been on before. There aren't many lakes around here that
have some form of public access that I've missed, but I've always driven
past this one on the way to the bigger lake. In fact, you have to know
where it is to see it at all from any of the park roads. I'd often thought
I ought to take the Tornado and carry it down to this isolated little pond,
just to explore it a little. This was the perfect opportunity.

I parked the van next to the faint path that leads down to the lake. I'd
only walked down it once before, but remembered that there was a pretty
good spot to put in a stubby little plastic boat like the Tornado, although
it would probably be nearly unusable for the bigger boats. The little
whitewater boat seemed light and easy to carry as I carried it down the
hundred yards or so of the path, paddle and PFD rattling around inside.

I stood on the shore and looked around the lake. To my eye, it was perhaps
ten acres, perhaps a little more. A marshy, brushy island sat over in one
corner. The fresh fall breeze ruffled the surface. Unlike the familiar
shores of Lake Hudson, only a few hundred yards off, this place seemed
strange and new, different somehow, less visited and more pristine. I got
in the boat and pushed off from the little shoreline spot where the path
ended. 

The boat felt strange -- I hadn't paddled it in months, and the seat isn't
very good. I took a stroke, not thinking about it very much, and the boat
spun perhaps a quarter turn. Oh, yes, this was a whitewater boat, after
all. I suppose that many months and miles in the easier tracking sea kayak
had made me a little sloppy about the basics -- I was just used to taking a
big stroke and letting the boat worry about going straight ahead. That kind
of nonsense wouldn't be tolerated in this boat. I could see that I was
going to have to think about what I was doing, but it was a good training
exercise, in any sense. Besides, I soon remembered that as soon as you get
up any sort of speed, the blunt bow pushes up a noisy, irritating wall of
water, so it's happier taking it easy.

Paddling gingerly, I started down the shoreline, not very far out. This
boat isn't rigged for a paddle float recovery, and I didn't have the gear
with me, anyway., so just to be on the safe side I decided to stay within
walking distance and depth of shore -- no big trick, since the pond didn't
appear to have much depth to it, anyway, and my paddle frequently struck
bottom that seemed harder than I had expected.

Once I got the feel of the boat a little, I could look around. The leaves
were all down on the trees around, except for one oak that held onto it's
dark brown remnants of summer glory. There was a row of pines along one
shore, lending a touch of green to the prevailing drab brown of winter.
There weren't a lot of birds out there this afternoon; the place seemed
empty, nearly untouched, and the breeze muffled the sound of the occasional
car passing on the nearby road.
I reflected that there probably aren't often boats on this lake. There are
a couple paths down here that are occasionally used by shore fishermen, but
otherwise it seemed untouched.

As I got down the pond  a little, the breeze started to bite at the boat a
little. The little blue kayak doesn't handle well in wind, and it was a
chore to fight the weathercocking that the wind induced. 

Running this close in to shore, I had to stay alert for things in the
water. Not far ahead, I saw a thin, weathered stake sticking vertically out
of the water, wondering why it was there, but the nimbleness of the little
boat paid off; it was only a matter of a couple minor adjustments to my
stroke to maneuver around it. Not much further ahead, there was a nubbin of
a snag sticking from the water, and a log laying pointed toward it on the
shore. Figuring that the two were attached, I debated whether to go around
the outside, or just slow down to a crawl and see if I could go over the
top. Just barely dipping the paddle to keep the boat under control, I went
over the top of where the log had to lay, but felt nothing.

Paddling onward brought me to the end of the little bay at the downwind end
of the lake. I turned into the wind to follow the shore, and the boat
proved it was happier heading into the wind and across it. I went around a
small point, where another enigmatic stake poked from the water, and had to
buck the crosswind to the back of the bay. Fortunately, coming back out of
the bay was in a windshadowed area, and I kept the boat close in, just
poking along, enjoying the day. A fish jumped -- not big, and no telling
what it was.

Past dried brown marsh grasses and the naked brush of late fall, past an
empty, solitary duck blind, I came to the upwind side of the lake, and
turned to look back across the expanse -- perhaps a quarter mile. At the
speed I was going, it seemed like a long way away. In one of the big sea
kayaks, I could paddle to the far end and back in minutes, but would have
failed to gain the intimacy of the shore I had seen.

As I paddled back the last couple of hundred yards to the little landing
hidden along the shore, I realized that I'd forgotten the joys of a simple,
slow pond paddle. I'd gotten used to hopping in the big boat and digging
big holes in the water, putting on miles at speed, but missing many of the
delightful details. I made a mental note that the Tornado and I were going
to have to get out more next year, on some of the quiet little ponds and
backwaters I know about around here, but only visit rarely. They have their
secrets and their joys, and reward the rare visitor that drifts around
their edges, taking their time and discovering their mystery.

-- Wes
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Wes Boyd's Kayak Place               http://www2.dmci.net/wesboyd/kayak.htm
Kayaks for Big Guys (And Gals) | Trip Reports | Places To Go | Boats & Gear
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