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catsittingstill) wrote2010-11-11 07:28 pm
catsittingstill) wrote2010-11-11 07:28 pm
Canoe Day
Remember when I asked a couple of days ago how many more good canoeing days there were likely to be in 2010?
Well, one more at least.
I went canoeing this afternoon. I took the extra weight to load in the boat (wound up carrying pretty much all of it behind me; I'm not sure why that looked right to me at the time I loaded the boat, but it did. I was carrying 45 lbs in back and at a guess 5 lbs in front besides me (180 in gear.) Had no problem handling the boat but when I went to wash her off afterwards (I'm taking her to show Martin's canoe building class tomorrow, and want her to look her best) the watermarks came to 5 inches of the (top of the) gunwales. She didn't seem that low in the water at the time, but it's something to think about.
So I took the camera this time; I don't know if you will be glad, or sorry, because I just fired away at anything that looked interesting to me.
First off, here is the rack I finished yesterday. There is plenty of room for Patience and Constance and some yet-to-be created sibling.
I put in at Bird Springs, (well, the Barnhills' house three houses down, which still has water) which is sometimes called Seven Springs, apparently, as usual, but this time I didn't try to make any distance up the lake. My muscles were still tired from rack building yesterday and canoeing the day before, so I was planning to just dink around. I wanted to be on the lake because 1) why wouldn't I want to be on the lake on a beautiful day and 2) maybe the wind would come up and I could test the waves thing, but I didn't need to go very far for that.
So I headed out of the put in bay.
The little concrete or stone (or both) structure to the right, I am told, was once a springhouse. Joan (Barnhill, of low-water-launching-point fame) says that during the civil war the soldiers would come there to water their horses. TVA dams ate a lot of history and there isn't much left of it now.
Out in the lake I paused several times to just sit still and enjoy the day and the water. It was a beautiful golden fall afternoon, and Constance was like a cradle in the water, rocking gently, peacefully, but never unsteady, never alarming. I fantasized about lying down in her and going to sleep in her arms, but alas, I would have to take out the back thwart to make it even possible. (Though some of the early canoes (mostly decked over and used for sailing as well as paddling) *were* used for sleeping in.)
I paddled around a tree-crowned peninsula (an island at high water) that juts north into the lake just west of my put-in point, then paddled farther north to a nearby island. This island is crowned by the foundations of another house that the lake ate, and there are bricks spilled out all down one side of the island. On the other side I met a turtle.
It didn't want to meet me, and slipped hastily into the water while I was looking at some birds (grebes I think) swimming hastily away from me.
Sometimes canoeing can make a person feel downright unpopular. Everything non-human clears out of the area. But so it goes.
By this time I was pretty close to the western shore of the lake, so I crossed over and poked around on that side for a while. There is a house for sale in a very beautiful, very private little cove. I'm not in the market and we couldn't have afforded it when we were and anyway it's much too far from Carson Newman (since the roads have to go all the way around the lake, not over it like my beautiful little boats.) But if I were wishing for houses, I'd wish for one on a beautiful secluded little cove with all the lake just around the bend. There was someone walking on the lawn there but they didn't come down to say hi and I thought they might be sad about selling their house so I went quietly away. And in the other arm of the little cove I snuck up on a tiny little turtle floating with just its nose at the surface. When it finally noticed me gliding up to it, it swam straight down as fast as it could go--so fast that the lake muck came off it in clouds and left a contrail down into the green murk.
I didn't get a picture; it happened too fast. Poor little turtle.
I poked farther north along the western shore. Some places had interesting water-worn rocks and even cliffs. I took this in one peaceful little cove.
And this one in the same place, pretty much.
This is one half of the double paddle my brother gave me for Christmas, redoubled by the mirror of the water.
I doubled back east to the island with the foundations, then back west and further north to what I thought was a peninsula but turned out to be an island, at least for now. I ran Constance around (sorry Constance!) trying to go around it, because in one place there was oly a couple of inches of water. And with me and 50 lbs in the boat, no way. Fortunately I had noticed the water getting shallow, so I wasn't going very fast, and it was sandy/muddy rather than rocks. Once I got out of Constance I was able to get her over the shallow place, and beached her, while I went up on the island to see a tree about some nitrogen.
You can see the drybag (weighted with dirty laundry and cans) behind the seat, and the black thing in the front (mostly hidden by the paddles is my bugout bag, which had my dry clothes in a plastic bag. It turns out that a quart bottle of water fits nicely beside the seat, so I had one on each side and alternated drinks to keep the ballast even. The little red thing near the front thwart is my little dry bag which holds my phone (and in this case my iPod; I meant to leave it at home but I forgot.
After this I paddled slowly back to the put-in point, took everything out of the boat, carried the boat slowly up the hill and put her on the car. Last time I carried her up alone I thought I wasn't going to make it; this time was a little less hard. That may be in part because I've figured out that I can carry her stern-first. When I put one gunwale on my shoulder (with the other above my head) this puts the back thwart basically near my face, where I can easily grab it with the offside hand, and use it to keep the top gunwale from swinging down or the stern from drooping down or tilting up.
Anyway I brought her home, scrubbed her out with clean water and a little detergent, and put her back on the car (fully tied down, since I'll have to take the freeway to Maryville tomorrow.) It was a beautiful day and I filled my ears up with peace and my eyes up with beauty; I have harvested fall. Winter may come now.
Though I wouldn't *mind* a little more fall.
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I was puzzled by "Carson Newman", but Google found it for me (http://www.cn.edu/).
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My husband works at Carson Newman college, which is why we cared about the distance to that in particular.
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Be careful what you wish for about that winter thing. :/
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We'll have good weather today and tomorrow (according to the forecast) but it's anyone's guess whether we'll have any more.
visibility with future full canoe rack
You'll have to hunch a bit, though.
Re: visibility with future full canoe rack
And while I enjoy looking at my canoes, I usually choose a vantage where I can admire the whole shape :-)
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I'd agree the birds were grebes.
Yay, turtle!
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On the bright side, I have already made a bit of a start on canoe #3; purchased cherry for the gunwales. Beautiful color to that wood.
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I like turtles.