Lake Woodlands II
June 8, 2019
by Kent Walters
We met at the Northshore Park boat ramp, quickly put everything together and, after a brief safety orientation and PFD check, got in the water.
We followed the north-west shore of the lake to the channel near the south end of the lake, and then went up the channel, where we saw a heron get very involved in his fishing (see photo above). We went as far as we could go without portaging to see what was up there. We were stopped by some rising tank traps under the bridge. We observed that a lot of thought went into the spacing of these cement blocks, which were placed in an intentionally inconvenient pattern that looked deceptively kayak-friendly from a distance, but proved to be more of a Chinese puzzle when viewed up close from the perspective of a kayak cockpit with the idea of not getting wet. From our vantage point in the blocks, we could see there was more water on the other side of the obstruction from the reflection of that remote water playing on the underside of the bridge.
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We paddled back down the channel and out onto the lake, under the small bridge to the tiny island to the dragon, and then circled back to the northwest shore for the return trip to catch a bit of shade. We crossed the lake where I thought there was an island passage, found what we were looking at was, in fact, not an island. We continued making our way to the northeast and saw a little duck family on the bank. After paddling for another 5 minutes in the sun, we discovered where the island actually was, and slipped behind it into a relatively undeveloped portion of the lake (for now). While padding through this shady and still section, we observed a lot of property line markers, a couple of wary great blue herons, and our mandatory dead, bloated, unidentifiable animal floating upside down.
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A few more strokes led us to the “Riva Row canal” where we wrestled a piece of driftwood onto Amy’s back deck. Upon further examination, Amy determined it did not meet her high quality standards, and we pushed it overboard, abandoning it as worthless. We snapped a few more pictures of yet another GB heron that was skulking around the inside corner of our turn, and then paddled to the end of the canal next to the man-made waterfall, another cleverly disguised barrier with water on the other side.
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The concert started, and we could hear the singing pretty well, and the orchestra came through when it reached the higher volumes. Piano and violins were the most easily heard portions of the orchestral spectrum from our venue with the competing waterfall’s “white” noise. We moved up the canal a little ways and found a kind of sweet spot where square of the distance from the waterfall was sufficient to mute some of its effect. Keeping that in mind for the next event.
The music was very good and the singers were extremely capable, both in terms of voice quality and harmonizing capabilities. It was unfortunate that the concert volume was insufficient to compensate for the combination of the square of the distance, persistent waterfall noise and broken line of sight from the stage that worked against us. I’m thinking there is a conspiracy . . .
We departed from our “fully obstructed view, semi-quasi-demi-basement” seating at 10:10 and arrived back at our take-out (same as put-in) with plenty of time to load up our boats and get out of the park before closing time.
A very pleasant, low-key time was had by all, and are looking forward to the Santana concert next month where I believe volume and featured artist specialty (lead guitar) should effectively overcome the aforementioned venue impediments.
GPS track:
Note: Forgot to start the meter when we launched. If I was a taxi driver, I would lose money.
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The author, Kent Walters |