November 24, 2005

Lake Gaston

As I launched the first day from the dock at the rental house, I stepped down a few feet into the kayak. I've launched from a dock many times, and never with incident. I stepped in off balance so I reached back over to the dock for support. But there was nothing on the deck of the dock to grab hold of, and in slow motion I fell backwards into the water as my fingers dragged across the dock.

I sunk like a rock at first. It was quiet, serene, and I had no urgent desire for air even though I didn't get a breath before going over. No one, as far as I knew at the time, saw me go over.

The air in my dry suit bubbled up to my shoulders, and with the help of my pfd I surfaced. I was a bit dazed/disoriented from the cold water on my head and pulled myself up a little on the dock and grabbed my paddle. "reenter and roll", I thought. Then as the warmth returned to my brain I thought it better to climb out on a nearby low dock and empty my boat so I didn't have to pump it. Between falling in and climbing out - probably a minute or two had elapsed.

Later in the day when I got back, I learned family members in the house had seen me go over. They couldn't see me until I climbed back on the dock, but assumed I was testing out my dry suit and made comments to each other about just that.

I left the dock feeling a bit embarrassed in spite of me not knowing that anyone had seen me. As I headed out of the small cove I headed south for the other side of the lake and directly in to the wind. It was a little bit of a slog as I crossed the 3/4 of a mile of water in hopes if getting on the wind shadow of the other side.

When I arrived on the south edge it appeared the wind was blowing mostly from the east so I headed off that way into the wind, with the thought of a push back to the house when I was finished. Before long though the wind turned around and I was paddling with the wind. So much for the free ride back.

Along the shore was nothing but houses, boats lifted clear of the water for the winter, and jet skis. I continued east until I reached where highway 903 crosses the lake, where I followed the road back over to the North side. I had covered a few miles by now, but had not seen any undeveloped places to explore, but as I looked west I could see one spot without a house overlooking the water. The wind, which had continued to build, made crossing over to the north side an adventure.

Paddling back to the rental house was not fun. The wind bit hard on my face and hands while I sought out every little wind shadow along the way to make progress against the wind. The one bare spot along the shore that I spotted was fenced off with barbed wire and a deer laid dead in the water.

I was glad to be back at the house. I could warm up by the fire and learn from the family that I had been seen falling into the water, but they thought I 'testing out the dry suit'.

Day two was too windy to paddle, but on the third day Katie and I headed off east. When we passed the deer she stopped and discovered additional hooves in the water, as if other deer had died there. We wondered if they could have gotten caught in the fence while going to the water for drinks.

We didn't go far before heading back to the house, but on day three we went west - a new area to explore. Of course it was filled with houses too, but we did find a wildlife management area back in a cove and paddled back to explore it. The small finger of the lake had two houses, and the rest were woods. We paddled as far as we could go then turned around. Katie was getting warm so we stopped on a floating dock had had broken loose from some other area of the lake and came to rest against the bank. I helped Katie out of her kayak and so she could shed a layer of fleece from under her dry suit. In short order we were back at the house.

There was not a lot of wildlife on the lake that we saw. A few ducks, geese and a (dead) deer. With all the boats and jet skis we saw hanging under covered docks, I think summer time would be chaos on the water. But for a late fall paddle it was pleasant if you don't mind the urban feel.

Pictures

Launch Finder

Woody