Friday, June 13, 2008
The first time Ann and I took our new kayaks out, we headed up to the lakeshore to paddle on Buck Pond. Unfortunately, we found the fairly small parking area jammed with boat trailers and vehicles for folks fishing, and after a lot of driving around ended up down at Genesee Valley Park where we paddled on the Genesee River and Red Creek. But we definitely wanted to get out on Buck Pond at some point, and today seemed like a good opportunity - hopefully the lot would be less crowded on a weekday.
We lucked out and only had to deal with a couple of cars belonging to some folks fishing, though I know Ann was concerned the lot would be jammed by the time we got back. But we took a chance on that, geared up, and headed out across the water.
The northern shore of the pond runs along a road, but the rest is bordered by cattail marshes with a variety of channels heading off into the swamp. The first two we followed reached dead ends, but the third let us follow the inlet all the way down to a trail bridge which was unfortunately too low for us to go under.
Along the way we startled several herons and saw four swans with two cygnets. On the way back Ann saw a female mallard with a group of ducklings too. We also spotted several turtles enjoying the sunshine and some big fish, especially in the patches of water lilies. Dragonflies buzzed all over the place, and red-winged blackbirds and other birds were constantly flitting back and forth. Definitely a nice place to paddle, though the constant traffic noise from the nearby roads meant it wasn't as peaceful as I'd have preferred.
It was a hot, humid day - a good day to be out on the water! I ended up with some interesting sunburn patterns in spots which didn't get covered by my spray suncreen (a valuable lesson - spread the stuff after spraying it!) But we beat the late afternoon storm back to the house and even managed to get all our gear unloaded and cleaned up before the rain started.
JMH
