lovely lake sendoff

sunrise:  5:38

This beautiful, sleek craft was built by my own little brother, who suggested I take it for a ride this morning. It was a bit wobblier than the nice little fat kayaks I’ve been using, but my brother was right about the glide. I flew across the water so fast that I decided to go all the way to the north end of the lake. Even against the wind I skimmed along in half the time, it seems, that the other boats would have taken.

What a glorious goodbye morning. At the lake’s far north shore there are no camps and there is a very protected cove. These two little islands used to be one – called North Island. Erosion wore them away, and eventually they seemed to demand a new name, which is now “twin islands.” They don’t look at all like twins to me.

Here is the view down the lake’s full length, about 3 miles. One summer day when I was young and full of energy and ideas, I decided to swim the entire lake. I was dropped off by a boat right here. At one of the first islands I passed a cousin’s dock, where he was lying in the sun. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Swimming the length of the lake, all the way to the club!” I told him. He dove in and joined me for the whole swim.

Behind the islands is this beautiful cove, where I saw a kingfisher and a breathtaking pair of herons that circled around me in the sky and alighted on a tree. That’s something I had never seen before. They looked slightly prehistoric high in the treetops.

Then another bird encounter dazzled me. A pair of loons and their baby were swimming nearby, so I paddled in their direction. The father sounded his haunting trill just a few yards from me. When I got close, he did the classic dive, but surprised me by coming up even closer to my boat.

What better way to finish an Adirondack stay than to capture a loon and the sunrise in one photograph.

The mother and baby were harder to approach.

I couldn’t grab for my camera too enthusiastically for fear of tipping myself over, and they were too fast for me. The little baby kept diving under for quick little dips, as though he was practicing his evasive maneuver by his mother’s side.

I finally came too close and got the mama upset. She let forth a piercing barrage of loonish cries before taking off across the water in a tizzy. I felt badly to have stirred them up so and made a quick exit. The baby seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. I was slightly worried (not as worried as that mother loon, however), but I waited at a more comfortable distance and saw him reappear.

This place and its residents stirred the core of me on my last day of lake mornings. It was a marvelous privilege to have been here all this time.