Thursday, April 17, 2008

Kayak Bliss

We took our kayaks out on Jordan Lake this morning for the first time since I can't remember when. Last year it got so hot and the lake got so low and skanky that we just stopped going. Well it isn't low anymore, there was hardly a space to launch the boats today the water level was so high. Where there is normally a wide sandy beach there was just enough room on the walkway to slip our two boats in side by side over the sand.

As always it was stunning out there. In the early morning light with hardly another boat on the lake, the water was placid, the air was cool and the sky was bright and clear. The tops of the big pine trees along the shore were brushy with new needles and yellow candles, sharp against the blue sky. I was wearing yellowish glasses that rendered the new leaves on the trees an electric chartreuse.

Yellow throated warblers were singing their "sweet, sweet, little more sweet" song from the tops of all those pines but we saw nary a one despite our searching. We did get a great look at a red-headed woodpecker and saw the usual raft of cormorants, ring-billed gulls, a couple of osprey and a dozen great blue herons. Eagles evaded us this time out but I know they're still there.

We like to paddle the boats back into a cove and just drift, looking up into the trees and willows. Good thing we didn't need to get out of the boats as there was no beach to pull out on anywhere.

We paddled about an hour and a half and then loaded up and headed home. It's a process, loading the boats, driving to the lake, unloading, paddling, reloading, coming home and unloading again! Probably about 2 hours in loading and driving each time but its worth it to be out there on the water.

I love to swim and I feel that way about the swimming too. Got to drive to the pool, change, swim, shower, dress and drive back home, but it's worth it to get that aqua therapy. In fact- anything I do that gets me next to water is worth whatever it takes because the water so feeds my soul.

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