Kayaking (v2.0)

I went home for two and a half weeks after finals and ate, slept, read, sat around the house, and went kayaking four times.  Twice on lakes near my house, and twice on the Charles River.

The first lake we went to was pretty small, and quiet since most (all?) access is from private residences.  We just happen to have connections in the right places.  One of my mother’s friends very kindly let us borrow kayaks, paddles, and life vests and launch from her house.  We kayaked out to one end of the lake, then on the way back, we encountered some of the strongest wind I’ve kayaked into.  It was consistently creating waves, which, due to the power of relative velocity, made you feel like you were travelling twice as fast, especially if you paddled in sync with the waves.  And then you would look up at the shoreline and wonder how you could expend that much energy to travel backwards.

Lake number one, with fancy lake houses on the shore.

The second lake was larger, and had lots of little islands.  Along the shore side of the islands, the water was absolutely calm:

We went kayaking in the afternoon of a weekday, so we didn’t see any other boats at all until we were leaving closer to evening.  On our way back to the parking lot, we saw a couple boats fishing, and a canoe.  Then just as we were paddling into the little cove/inlet where the launching ramp was, a whole group of motorboats came speeding roaring motoring out.  Good timing.

As for the Charles River, I’ve kayaked on it before, but always further upstream.  These times, we launched near to Cambridge and had to share the river with motorboats, crew shells, and boat tours.  Still a good experience, but I prefer it when the river is quieter.

Saw these guys on the first trip.

Saw this the second time.  Just like this.  Really.*

*Not really.  I know, you want my Photoshop skillz.

Kayaking

Because it’s summer, we’re experiencing a heat wave, and my brain has been fried on the sidewalk my creative juices are really flowing right now, the title of this post is “Kayaking.” It is about kayaking. I know, you’re wondering how I came up with that brilliant title.

Anyway, a few summers ago my father invested in a pair of kayaks so that he and I could go kayaking without having to bother about rental fees and things like that. Instead, we now bother about getting the kayaks from under the deck to the top of the van, which involves setting up the carriers on the roof rack, hauling the kayaks up to the carriers, strapping the boats down, and loading paddles, seat covers, life jackets, water, and snacks into the van. By the time you’re done, you’re tired enough to forgo the whole venture, but you've gone through all the trouble, so you set out anyway, and hope that the weird humming sound you hear isn't the kayak getting ready to make its escape and/or cause permanent damage to your car roof.

If it’s the first kayaking adventure of the summer, you have the added pleasure of first chasing out any winter residents such as dirt, spider webs, and insects in various stages of decay. You have to use the strongest setting on the hose and sometimes, if you’re really fortunate, you get splattered with dead insect parts and mud. I know this because I've done it twice.

So in the past few weeks, we've been heading out to nearby kayaking locations. There are a couple state parks with lakes near our house, but one is pretty small and the other tends to have a bunch of motorboats on it. There’s also a (somewhat) well-known river that we went to most recently. But I didn't bring my camera so I only have pictures from our trip the week before that.

There are some parts of the lake that are pretty quiet, and there must not have been much wind in general, so the reflections turned out really clear.

And here’s a picture of my feet in the kayak. With my new sandals.