Kent and Sam at Put-in
Sam picked me up at about 11:00 and we went to the Flying J Burgers and Fish Restaurant for lunch. We launched at the Waterfowl Refuge at noon + 12 minutes and padded into the “swamp”.
After all of our recent freezes the only green was on the evergreens a little ways in from the shore and on the moss and lichens. It was an ideal bird-watching situation except for one thing – no birds. Actually there was a raft of ducks, a lone vulture, and we scared up a great blue heron. Oh, and there were some LBJs flitting around in some sticks that were too far away for identification. And we heard crows and woodpeckers.
Sam at the end of the first channel
Our path lay through here
On our return to base in this channel we were amazed to see the same raft of ducks, the same vulture and the same great blue heron that we saw before. We bashed our way through another thicket (see our route below) to another channel, and finally headed to the take-out.
It was a very peaceful and quiet trip, except when it wasn’t.
We were off the water by about 2:10 and home by about 3:00.
Our route