April 6, 2002

The Sisters

12.5 miles

Saturday's wind forecast 10-15 MPH; Sunday's 15-20 MPH. So Saturday it would be. I've wanted to do the lower third of Lake Ogawara for a while now.

Shaped like a high-heel boot, my launch location would be at the back of the foot, behind where the ankle is located.

The winds were supposed to be out of the east, an anomaly since I've been here. But as I loaded up the kayak at the shore the waves were coming out of the West. Actually, I should say the ripples were coming out of the west as there was almost no wind. The sun rises at 5:10 today, and by 7:00 am, as I start off on my journey; it seems as if the sun is too high in the sky. By mid-summer, sunrise will be close to 4:00 am.

The first leg of the trip takes me down towards the heel. At least it looks like a heel on the map, but a narrow impassable creek blocks me from actually entering the heel. I stop for a few minutes to survey an old wreck in the water. Some type of floating boat for drilling holes in the lake bottom. Sticking out the front is a long auger bit, and the boat appears to have been scuttled and sitting firmly on the bottom.

I turn west and paddle near the base. There appears to be a road back here that isn't on the base. I'll want to scout this area as a possible put-in in the future. As I'm traveling along, I feel as though something is traveling with me. I look around and find I'm in a cloud of bugs. As they flew along they looked like mosquitoes to me, but I can tell when they land they aren't, but I don't know what they are. I'm not too worried as I'm covered from head to toe in my drysuit. But still, the thought of being in this has me a bit unnerved. The cloud of bugs continues to grow and several times I try to sprint ahead to lose them. But they always catch up, and each time they bring more and more of their friends.

I'm beginning to wish for the wind. The bugs have gotten so thick that almost every other breath has me spitting out these hideous creatures. In my mind I imagine they are saying to one another "Do you think he is too big to carry back to the nest?"

Well, even if I don't know what they are thinking, I certainly know how they taste - yuck!

I try splashing them with water, swatting them with my paddle - but nothing seems to work. There are dead bug carcass' all over my kayak and PFD. Taking off my hat I notice it too is covered. As I get close to the lower edge of the toe, I stop paddling to take a few pictures.

I see a train cross an elevated trestle as I'm getting the camera out, but it passes before I can snap the picture. Panning to my right I take yet another picture of the mountains in the background, and then notice I'm getting close to the park on the western part of the lake.

I'm hungry and decide to go there to eat lunch. But before I start up I notice the cloud of bugs is no longer buzzing around my head. Not a single one! Then I look on my foredeck and see they have all settled onto my deck. I look behind me and find them sunning themselves on the rear deck as well. It's clear to me now what happened.

Ever since they were small pupa, these little bugs have been told that one day a giant yellow flower would come along to carry them off to bug heaven. The bugs were not flying around my head to harass me; they had come to worship the giant flower. I thought for a moment how wonderful it was to believe in such a thing. To fly as fast as you could to catch up to land on this giant flower they had heard about during the long thirty days of their lives. How they must be truly in nirvana now that they had made it to this mystical place that had been spoken about for generation after generation, but never seen. How excited they must be. In a way, I was like a god to them.

So, with a brush of my paddle and a giant scoop of water I washed them off my deck and into the water to certain death.

The wind was starting to blow now out of the East, but with it now hitting me broad side, I didn't pay it much attention. I wouldn't see any more bugs, having shattered the hopes of the few survivors. There will be a different story told to the young pupa tonight.

I finally pulled into shore as a power boat was filling with people in blue exposure suits and bright orange PFDs. I ate my lunch and took a few pictures of a fire circle, an old boat sitting next to the road, and some ducks on the beach. It's interesting that the ducks let me get this close on shore, because in the water they kept a good 150 feet away from me.

One interesting spot I stumbled across was the Legend of Lake Ogawara:

Sign

A few last pictures of the statue, and I headed back towards the boat. I was stopped by an elderly man who did his best to talk with me. But we couldn't understand each other at all. He gestured with his hands all over my clothes and PFD, but his eyes were fixed on the knife strapped to my chest. I wondered if he was trying to warn me if it was illegal. Next time I'll leave the PFD in the boat.

It was time to make my way home. The wind had picked up considerably, but with just enough angle I thought I could use the ridge on my left (top of the foot) to provide a little bit of shelter for about half the return trip.

All along the edge of the lake is dotted with fish traps. It's almost impossible to travel for any length of time near shore without running over nets. The large amount of rebar sticking up out of the water made me a tad more careful than normal.

As I rounded the end of the ridge and headed straight across the lake, the wind got my attention by pulling all the water off my paddle and blowing it back into my face. I feathered my paddle - the first time this year, and dug in for what I guessed to be two miles of wind in the face. Across the open water there wasn't much to keep my mind off the wind, so it seemed even longer than it really was.

But before too long, I beached on the shore. Tired, but knowing that somewhere out there I had left the stress of the previous week...and killed a bunch of bugs.

Woody