An Awkward Greeting

so i wasn't feeling very creative this morning and i couldn't come up with any really wicked, sweet designs so i decided to do a simple one that was suggested by a friend of mine. but, as i am beginning to figure out, it doesn't really matter how simple the design is, it is always going to be a little tricky. this one started out a little funky, got better, got worse, but ultimately ended up finishing alright.

it was foggy again this morning. really foggy. i don't know why i always seem surprised by this. it's always foggy. its just that some mornings are a lot foggier than others. this was one of the really, really foggy ones. this was the kind of fog that almost seems like smoke. the kind of fog that, when you are out in the middle of it and take a nice deep breath, you can feel entering your lungs. its cool, moist, and heavy and brings about visions of irish moors. its also damned impossible to see through and that is the reason that the first line of my "H" looks like the hunchback of notre dame. after i made the first turn at the top left corner of the "H" i stopped to snap a couple of pictures of the fog and then started padding again.

the original design called for a capital "H" and a capital "I", but after finishing the top of the "H" i decided that i just didn't have room for the extra lines on the capital "I" and decided to make it lowercase. as i was heading down the right side of the "H" i noticed a fishing boat to my left (where the "i" was supposed to go). it looked like it was slowly moving out into the lake so i wasn't worried about him getting in my way or vice versa. things are never that easy. as i made my turn to start the "i" i realized that the fishing boat was now moving towards shore and right into my path. as i paddled up the "i", i had keep moving over further and further to avoid getting in the way of the boat. eventually i was able to make it around it. unfortunately my "i" ended up looking like the leaning tower of pisa. in hindsight i should have slowed down or stopped, let the boat pass, and then continued on my way. oh well, what are ya gonna do, right?. anyway, for all the improvisation with the "i" i think the whole design still turned out well. and i learned that, when you are trying to paddle it in a kayak, no design is as easy as it seems.

Today's Trip Stats and Map

Algae Update

apparently i wasn't the only one who noticed all the brown and white algae in the water on edinboro lake yesterday. it was called in to authorities as a possible paint spill. the Erie County Haz Mat crew came out and, after sending some samples to the lab, discovered that it was a naturally occurring algae and not paint or oil.

i must admit that when i first saw it floating on the water yesterday morning my first impression was that it looked like thin pieces of latex paint. but after seeing so much of it in so many different areas of the lake i decided that it must be naturally occurring. i thought that it was mold growing on top of the algae. i didn't realize that it was a type of algae. but like i said yesterday i'm no algae expert.

anyway, you can click here to read the whole story as covered by WICU12.

A Nice Leisurely Trip

today on the way to the lake i decided not to try any new designs. i figured that i needed a break. i just wanted to buzz around the lake and look at the scenery. that decision actually worked out well today. when i got to the lake there was someone water skiing so, i couldn't really go out into the middle of the lake anyway.

that doesn't mean it was an uneventful morning. i actually got to see a lot of different things. since i have been hanging around the southern end of the lake i haven't had a chance to see the progression of algae on the northern end of the lake for the last few weeks. no big loose there. it seams as though the green algae has given way to brown algae. now, i'm no expert, but i think that i have heard that brown algae is worse than green algae. i don't know for sure. i could google it and find out, but i haven't had a chance yet. it definitely looks and smells worse. it also looks like it has mold or something growing on top of it. again, not an expert, but yuck.

i did paddle my way through some of the less algae covered areas and was able to see a blue heron. it was near the same place where i have see them before and i am going to assume that it is the same one that i have photographed in the past. i wasn't able to get very close before it flew, but i was able to get up close to some flowers on the bank nearby. i don't think that they were completely in bloom yet, but they were still cool. i'm not sure what kind they are but i'll probably google them latter too.

on my way back across the lake i heard a noise, looked up, and saw three single-engine planes. they were fairly low, but other than that it really wasn't that special. i just didn't expect to see them. i took a couple of pictures but they're not very good. just a big blue picture with three black dots. woopie.

the water skier didn't end up staying out for very long. if i had known that i could have done a design. but, it was nice to just relax and look at the scenery around the lake. it has been several weeks since i have done that and it was a really nice change.

Today's Trip Stats and Map

Sailboat II

6:00am seemed to arrive a little extra early this morning and the alarm clock sounded a lot extra loud. after fumbling for the snooze button and a few minutes of groggy contemplation, i finally decided that kayaking, not bed, was the better of my two morning options.
i toyed with the idea of just going for a leisurely paddle around the lake but instead decided to press forward with another design. one suggestion i received was to do a celtic knot. at first i thought that would be an ideal design. a celtic knot is one continuous line that loops around with a few twists and turns. piece of cake, right? well, after 15 minutes of googling and drawing celtic knots i discovered that, when drawn very large with a thin line they look very unimpressive. they really need to have a nice thick, chunky line to make it look right. i wasn't quite sure how to get that look and i really didn't have any more time this morning to try and figure it out. so, now that i was 10 minutes behind schedule and idea-less, i hit the road hoping that i would think of something on the way.

let me just say that a morning without coffee is definitely not the best time to come up with a new, inspiring idea. as i pulled up to the boat launch i decided to give the new sailboat design a try. it was that or nothing. so, still being 10 minutes behind schedule and starting a design that i was sure would take about 45 minutes to complete, i unloaded as fast as i could and hit the water paddling.

the fog this morning was extra chunky and made the it hard to paddle the straight lines with no on-shore reference points. luckily, at about a quarter of the way through the design, the fog began to thin enough that i could make out shapes on the shore. the lake was empty and calm and i was able to make some pretty good time.

all-in-all i was able to create a 3 mile design in under 45 minutes and the final design turned out a million times better than the first sailboat. there are a few small details that i would like to have done differently but, overall i and very satisfied with the final result. i'm really glad that i revisited this idea with a design that was pre-planned and not spur-of-the-moment.

Today's Trip Stats and Map

Sailboat

let me just start by saying that i'm not satisfied with how this one turned out. it's not horrible, but it is not what i had in mind.

the other day my lovely wife suggested that i do a sailboat shape. i thought that was a great idea and fully intended to come up with a good plan for padding it. obviously this did not happen. my planning period consisted of me sitting in the car at the boat launch scribbling on the back of a walmart receipt with a pen. the result ,as you can see, was less then stellar. I NEED TO PLAN BETTER. i already have a better plan for sailboat 2, but i'll save that for a another day.

it was also very, very foggy on the lake this morning, mostly on the eastern shore. i'm not using that as an excuse for the sailboat, but it did make it more difficult. i had a lot more trouble doing the straight lines without being able to see reference points on shore.and the flag on the top of the sailboat? that was a spur of the moment decision the went awry. i'm not even really sure how it got so drastically messed up. but, that is just another example of why i need to have a plan and stick to it.

i'm not sure what shape to do next, but as always, suggestions are welcome.

Today's Trip Stats and Map

Lake Shark

ok, so today i tried a shark. i think it worked out alright. not great, but alright. i think that i definitely need to plan these things out a little better. i almost had to get out and carry the kayak across the shore to make the dorsal fin because i didn't start far enough out in the lake. it also turned out looking a little upside down. i'll plan the next one a little better and hopefully end up with something cooler. i will say that this one was a lot easier than the first one. since the shark was mostly straight lines i was able to focus on landmarks on shore instead of relying totally on the gps screen. that made it a lot less disorienting.

it looks better rotated on it's side. see?

since the shark only took about a half hour i still had some time to kill. so, i just did a quick 10 minutes out and back. nothing exciting, but that explains the second map and stats.

Today's Trip Stats and Map
Lake Shark
..and the rest

and again, if anyone has a suggestion for another shape, let me know.

So, this was my idea

after looking at the tracks that i uploaded to garmin the other day i wondered how hard and or cool it would be to try to kayak a design. use the kayak as my pen and the gps track as my ink, so to speak. i was really excited to try it out, but i wasn't able to go kayaking until today. that gave me a couple of days to decide what design to try. i wanted to do something simple to start, but also kinda cool. my first thought was a flower. i don't know why. it just sounded good. but then i wondered if doing all the petals would be to difficult for a first try. so i thought about other simple shapes like a fish , or a letter, or something like that.

when i left this morning i had settled on doing a simple letter C. for curtis. i set the gps on my lap so that i could use it for reference and set out. but as i started paddling out into the lake i made a last minute decision to go for the flower. i figured, why not?

the stem and the circle for the center seemed pretty easy. the hardest part of that was deciding how far out into the lake to end the stem and start the center circle. even matching up the end of the circle to the beginning of the circle was easy. then i started on the petals. the first two went well, but as i continued on things got a little more difficult. since i was trying to match up all the track lines on the gps, most of my time was spent looking down at my lap. since i really had no frame of reference on the water for where i had been, that was the only way i could make sure that i was lining everything up properly. the problem was that whenever i DID look up at the scenery i got very disoriented. with all the 360's and loops around to do the petals, i was never in the spot, or facing the direction that i thought i should be. it was very confusing. and by the end, you could tell that my petals had suffered because of it (the last one looks pretty sickly). finishing the stem and staying parallel to the first stem line was a lot easier that i thought it would be, but for some reason the leaf seemed extra hard. i think i was still a little disoriented from the petals. all-in-all i think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt.

it was a lot of fun, a little confusing, very cool, and very satisfying to complete. i don't think that this is something i will be doing every time i kayak, but this is definitely not the last time i will try a shape.

Today's Trip Stats and Map

have a suggestion for my next shape attempt? let me know.

So, I've got this idea...

i don't want to say what is is yet, but i think it could be really cool. The next time i go out i'll give it a try and see how plausible it actually is. it has to do with the gps tracks that i have started posting. that's all i'm going to say for now. i'm really excited about it. i hope it works.

The Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
     -Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)

this fog was more like a big ol' fat cat. it was a warm, humid, and foggy day on the lake today. when i pulled in and started unloading at about 6:50am the temperature was 71F and the fog out across the lake was the thickest that i have seen. pea soup, or more aptly, clam chowder came to mind. after about 10 minutes out on the lake the combination of  humidity and fog made my glasses start to steam up and they didn't clear up until i was getting ready to leave.

it must have been too foggy for almost everyone else because the lake was almost deserted. when i started out there were two guys out water skiing and on my way back i saw a guy fishing. other than that it was nice and quiet.

as i was paddling out to the north end of the lake i saw some movement out of the corner of my eye to my left. i looked over to see a blue heron flying by. it was about six feet above the water and about 25 feet away from me. that was pretty cool. it made a wide arc and looked like it landed near where i had seen the heron on the log almost 2 weeks ago. i was headed in that direction anyway, so i thought it might be cool to swing by that spot and see if, by chance, i could see it. well, by the time i got over there i had kind of forgotten about it (short attention span) and as i passed buy i glanced over and, sure enough, the heron was standing on the same half submerged log. i decided to try and get closer. i circled around through some of lilies and weeds (opposite of where i was last time) and was able to get pretty close before it finally flew. i was close enough that i could hear its wings beating the air as it took off. that was pretty cool. the pictures i got are not nearly as good as the ones from our first encounter, but it was still pretty cool.

Today's Trip Stats and Map 

Slime Free

...well, almost. looks like all that rain that we got at the end of last week really helped to clear out the algae and slime that had begun to build up in the northern most regions of the lake. it was so thick in places that i really wasn't able to get close to the lilies or the shore on that end of the lake. today i was actually able to go back into some of those areas, a little way at least, before it started to get too nasty. in all reality, i could go back into these areas. i have tried. it is actually physically possible to go into them, i just choose not to. the algae wraps around the ends of the paddle and falls off onto the kayak, or me, or both. and, maybe it makes me a little bit of a wuss, but yuck! i don't want that nasty slimy stuff all over everything.

anyway it was nice to be able to visit those parts of the lake again. hopefully we can get a few more rain storms like the last one and really get the water cleared up.

Today's Trip Stats and Map 

Moby Musky Dick

so, its been a while since i went kayaking. the last time i went was monday morning. it was the day after the 4th of july. the lake was very busy. mostly with fishing boats. but, other than all the extra traffic it was a very uneventful trip. today on the other hand was full of fun.

we haven't had a lot of rain lately, and you can definitely tell by all the algae and crud growing in the corners of the lake. with no new water coming in to the lake all of the still areas are really beginning to stagnate. all the little nooks and crannies that i slipped into a few weeks ago are so grown over and nasty looking that i have begun to keep my distance. it just looks icky (yes, i'm a grown man and i said "icky"). hopefully we can get enough rain to get the water in the lake moving a little and get some of this algae out of there.

over night we were scheduled to get some rain. that's great because we need the it, but it was also bad because this was the first morning that i had a chance to go kayaking and i really didn't want to go in the rain. so, when i got up this morning to a dry ground with stormy skies i was pleasantly surprised. i quickly loaded up and headed for the lake to try and beat the rain. it sprinkled a little while i was out on the lake and then stopped and didn't start again until i made it back to the boat launch. that's when it really started to come down. i stayed dry out on the lake, but got soaked loading the kayak. figures...

but by far, the best part of today's trip was that i saw a fish. normally this isn't a big deal. i see fish all the time. it's actually pretty neat to sneak up on a school of fish that is near the top of the water and watch the splashes as the scatter. but this was different. i was about 100 yards from shore and saw a big splash. bigger than i usually see. so that was cool. i paddle a few more minutes and saw it again a little further away. this time it splashed along on the top of the water for about 30 seconds and about 10-12 feet. so i paddle over to see if i could get a closer look. over the next 10 minutes i followed this thing around as it popped up to the surface and splashed around. the closest i was able to get was about 2 feet away. it was big. a lot bigger than i thought when i first saw it. my best guess at the size was that it was a couple of feet long and the body was about as wide as my thigh. after about 10 minutes i stopped seeing it and decided i had better get going anyway. when i got to work i looked up the species of fish that live in edinboro lake and decided that what i had seen must have been a muskellunge (or musky). apparently they can grow to be over 4 feet long. a 20-35 pound musky is not unusual, and the PA state record holding musky was 54 lb. 3 oz. that's a lot of fish.

what a great day to kayak.

Sneakier Than I Thought

so today i decided to head up to the north west corner of the lake. i had only been in that area once and i decided that i wanted to see a little more of it. there wasn't anything really exciting over there. it was pretty much what i remember it being from the last time. i did go back in around the lilies a little further and found a nice quite little area. nothing exciting going on back there either unless you count me almost getting stuck on a submerged log. thank goodness the kayak had a very flat, low profile bottom.

anyway, on the way out i decided to cut through some lily pads instead of going way out around the large patch of them. i was halfway through, minding my own business, when i look up and see this big fella. i'm not sure how i was able to get so close. i wasn't even trying to be quiet. the last two times i tried to get close to a blue heron it flew before i was even a little close. so, either my ninja skills are getting better or this guy wasn't paying attention. as quietly as i could, i reached for my camera and took it out of its ziploc baggie. since the last ziploc fiasco i have started putting the camera in the bag and just folding the bag over instead of actually zipping it shut. it isn't as water proof that way, but as long as i don't submerge it the stays dry. and i figure that if the camera is being submerged then i have bigger problems.so, i was able to get a couple really good pictures before the heron decided that it had had enough of me and took off. very cool.

see more pictures of this heron in the photo gallery

Rough and Calm

so, yesterday morning i didn't go kayaking. our three boys were leaving for a week of camp and i needed to see them off. luckily, since that meant that we only had one kid left at home, i didn't feel guilty about going out after work. and what a day it was. when i got to the lake at about 5:30 the wind was blowing pretty strong and the water was pretty choppy. sweet.

now, there is something to be said for a nice quite trip on a calm lake. its relaxing and fun. if you want a good workout you can paddle fast and hard and get one, but if you want to take it easy, you can do that too. that being said, there is definitely something to be said about really choppy water. it is so much fun. there is really nothing like the feeling of battling the water. every wave attacking you and trying to push you in its own direction. the splash and crash of the waves over the front of the kayak. the spray in your face. that wonderful slapping sound the kayak makes as it falls back to the water after a particularly large wave. that's what it was like last night. and what a great workout. there is no taking it easy in water like that. if you do not work the whole time you lose ground fast. i was only out on the lake for 30 minutes, only managed to go 1.73 miles, and still was completely exhausted afterward. plus i was soaked. i don't think i could have been any wetter if i had just jumped in the lake. and then i met danielle and zoey at Big Moe's for diner. it doesn't get much better than that.

this morning i was out again. i was still a little tired from last night, but i figured why not. the lake was quite and calm. nothing like last night. i decided to take it easy and not push it to much today. i did 2.38 miles in 38 minutes. not to bad for a leisurely morning.

today was also the coldest morning that i had been out. the thermometer in the car registered 47 degrees as i pulled up to the boat landing. once you get moving, and especially once you get out in the water, it really isn't that bad. the lake water is always a lot warmer than the air, and being out on the lake makes a big temperature difference. but, some of my stuff was still damp from last night so that made it feel a little more chilly while i was getting things ready.

the first place i headed this morning was down towards the spillway. i went down that way the other day, but i didn't get any pictures. so, i decided to go back and get a couple of pictures of the bridges. after that, i headed back out to the lake. i took it easy and enjoyed the calm, cool quite and easy paddling  for the rest of the time.

check out the bridge pictures and other stuff in my  photo gallery