Kayak Day

The sky is clear and beautiful, the air and water are warm. A perfect day. OK, so I can't ski this week. But we wanted to get out on the water. Solution: kayaks.

Our yard is easy to maintain.

The guy who built our house back in the 80s liked to fish in tournaments. He built a minimum maintenance house that had it's own boat launch (the only private boat launch on the canal system) and a drive-thru garage (garage doors front and back). The garage is the depth of the house, so it had plenty of room for him to pull his boat on it's trailer attached to the car into the garage. In the morning, he simply opened up the front garage door and drove off to his tournament. Pretty good design. We would never try to haul our ski boat out like that. The back boat launch works as a kayak area for us. And a great place for the local wildlife to hang out.

Down the creek to the lake.

We headed out to the lake. The water level is still very low due to the drought. Plenty deep for our ski boat, but there are some people who have big heavy v-hulls. Those boat might have a problem until we get more rain.

Out on the lake.

We spent most of our time paddling around the lake. We saw a number of gators (and heard several more in the reeds close to shore). Alligators stay away from people (unless some fool has been feeding them...) Their skittish nature makes them fun to chase in kayaks. You spot them swimming on the surface, head towards them, and down they go...only to bob up a hundred yards away. Repeat the chase. (Cheap thrills...)

Boat Traffic Sign

Catfish Creek

Catfish Creek runs through our neighborhood. A series of canals, each about a third of a mile long, comes off this lovely creek. The canals and residential areas are on its west side. The east side is wetlands and orange groves. Most days you find turtles, little green herons, great blue herons, playful river otters, egrets, wood storks, anhingas, ducks, and an occasional alligator on the creek and in the canal system.

Home

The boat launch works great for the kayaks.

It was a pleasant kayak ride around the neighborhood. Kayaks are not much in the way of excitement on calm water, but the views and wildlife make up for what they lack in thrills. (If you want thrills in a kayak on an inland lake, go out when there are a bunch of wake boats and wakeboarders out on the lake. Those boat throw up really big rolling wakes. If you don't topple out of your kayak playing in these wakes, you are doing something wrong!)