July 2, 2011 Sherman Island

Today we went to one of our favorite spots... Sherman Island. This is located off of Spier Falls Road near Corinth. We launched the boats around 9:30 AM. The water was perfect. Not a ripple. We headed  east towards the Sherman Island Hydro Plant (towards Glens Falls). There were only a few other boats on the water; a few kayaks and some fishing boats. We worked our way across the water to the opposite side. It was surprising to us that we didn't see anyone camping on the camp sites that are over on that side of the river. The weather forecast was good but maybe the holiday kept  people away.


As we approached the large campsite Tim saw a Bald eagle! He pointed it out to me and we watched to see what it was going to do. It sat up in a tree on the shore for a little while before making a pass over the water and landing in another tree. We thought that we might get a chance to see it grab a fish (and maybe take it back to a nest!) No such luck. The eagle flew over us and went to the other side of the river. We couldn't see it once it got close to the trees.

Not a very clear photo; but the eagle is in the tree.

I feel fortunate to have captured this photo. I do not like the new cameras today with out an eyepiece to look through. With the glare of the sun, I was shooting blind.

We left the eagle and kept a look out the rest of our paddle, "just in case!"  We decided to paddle in and out of the small islands and inlets. We found the foot bridge that has been eluding us on many of our trips. I have a better sense of where it is now. Beavers have it all blocked off for a few years now. We had paddled through there quite a while back.

I guess I can now call this Beaver Pass, since only beavers can maneuvre through.

We also looked for signs of purple cone flowers. I had sown some seeds last year to see if they would grow. I felt the area could use a little color. No sign of any cone flowers. We did see a variet of iris, though.

Iris

 

As we paddled back out to the main portion of the river, I had to snap a picture of this tree:

July 2011

 I have a picture of the same tree somewhere. Tim took my picture sitting in my first kayak underneath it. It had needles back then. I can't find it though. It's funny to see how things change over the years.

We didn't realize how low the water was until we got back to the launch. You could see a large piece of cement under the water that we had never noticed before. How could you not notice this??

We were glad to get out of the water when we did. The boat launch was very busy at noon with many boats going in. We like the river to ourselves!

June 26, 2011 Lake Algonquin

     It's been several weeks since we've been kayaking. On June 11th our daughter Erin got married. On June 13th we traveled to Washington state for a week. We're back now and ready to get some kayak trips in. Hopefully the weather will cooperate!
     We met the Yakkers and headed to Lake Algonquin in Wells, NY. Wells is right before you get to the town of Speculator. We parked at the beach and launched our kayaks. The water was nice and calm, so no real waves. Just the water we were looking for!

Gary & Tim

Nance & Tim

Lake Algonquin is a small lake. It has quite a few houses on it though. They vary quite a bit in size. The view is beautiful. Mountains in the distance make a wonderful back drop.

On our way around the main section of the Lake, there were several Canada Geese and babies. They were so adorable. They were still pretty fuzzy.

These baby geese were pretty large.

Thes babies were quite a bit smaller.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We headed back towards the beach area. We paddled under the new bridge and waited for everyone to get back together. We surprised Megan and sang Happy Birthday to her. Can't ignore her birthday (she turned 23)

The birthday girl

We paddled farther north. There were fewer houses in this section. The left side was natural with a large beaver lodge in the grass.  No sign of any beavers, though. It was much narrower in this section. This would be a nice area to have a house. Pretty quiet back there and few houses. We actually saw one that we might put an offer on. We're thinking ahead to retirement. This could be it! What do you think??

A little slice of paradise!

 

It even comes with a picnic table! We would have to improve the launch area though. It has a front AND a back door. Have to keep safety in mind.

     This was a very nice paddle. It was a shorter than many of the paddles we do, but sometimes that is nice. We loaded up our cars and headed home to get ready to celebrate Megan's birthday. It was grilled pizza night, by request. We did the prep... Megan did the grilling!

June 5, 2011 Lake Abanakee

We met Gary & Sharon this morning for a trip to Lake Abanakee. None of us had been there before. It is near Indian Lake. We saw this motorcycle at Stewart's in Indian Lake. Check out the mini car/trailer. It was obviously heading the Americade in Lake George.

Motorcycle with mini car in tow

Sharon wearing her hat & netting

Tim, Megan, Gary, Sharon & I started to unpack    
our gear. I looked up to see Gary & Sharon with
nets over their hats. I was thinking, "Really, nets??"
But by the time I walked to the water with my first
load of gear, I wished that I had a net too.
The Black Flies were horrible!

                         

The morning was cooler than I had expected. We didn't wear long pants, so Megan & I decided to paddle with a beach towel over our legs. It was certainly cool enough for our long sleeves. Megan decided to start bringing her Ranger doll, kind of like "Flat Stanley." She will be perched on Megan's kayak and have her picture taken at each outing. It was kind of fun seeing "Sue" perched on the kayak.

Ranger Sue comes along

Megan & Sue

We came across several areas that had a of of stumps. Many were above water, but Tim got stuck on one like a sandbar. He was able to wiggle off it in time to give us a heads up.

Stumps stick up in the water

Nest in the top of a tree

 We paddled under a bridge and saw a large bird on a power pole and another flying around it with a snake (we think) hanging from its' beak. It flew around with that snake for a while, before we lost sight of it. We did spot the nest on a platform an the top of another power pole. We think the bird may have been an Osprey, but didn't get a close enough look.

Ranger Sue

Our paddle was about 2-3 hours today.
There was enough breeze to keep the black flies away on the water. We saw a loon. They're awesome. I love how they dive under water and come up far from where they submerged.  No picture of the loon, though.We had the lake to ourselves until the very end of the trip.

Nance

 

Tim & Megan (and Sue)

I would definitely go back and paddle here again. It would make a nice trip in the Fall.

May 30, 2011 Fish Creek

Today was our first outing of 2011 with "the Yakkers". If you haven't read my Blog before, this is a group of our kayaking friends that we take a large percentage of our kayak outings with. We try to vary the places we go to. Every year we discover some new places. Today we took them to Fish Creek. I don't think too many of them had been on Fish Creek before. We met at The Kayak Shack at Staffords Bridge. There were 14 of us in 13 kayaks. We launched and headed for the dam at the Schuylerville end of the Creek.

Some of the Yakkers

It was a nice paddle out. The carp were spawning. They are fun to watch as they splash around and make quite a racket. If you didn't know what it was, it could be a little creepy I guess. The first time I heard the carp on Round Lake I was a little nervous. You could only hear them in the weeds, but could not see them. On Fish Creek, they were right on the edges of the water. No doubt as to what was making all of the noise. You could see their fins. I hope this video will play for you. I took it on the paddle back in. It was hard to know where to point the camera as they were all over!

 

The next video is good at the beginning, but then I sort of drift around.

 

The paddle today took us about 3 hours. We went all the way to the dam. There is a "fun" part where you have to go through a No Wake zone. There is an older gentleman that is sort of the "Keeper of the Channel." I guess he lives there. We always see him when we paddle Fish Creek. He tells people where they can and can't paddle. Keep between the  red and green markers, stay between the buoys... He can be a nice guy if you let him. As he says, he's there to help. We've seen him butt heads with people though. They don't like being told what to do.

The Keeper of the Channel

He told us about a statue he built to protect us. He even gave our friend Doug a book to read about the water. We didn't get a chance to look at it. So here it is, and I guess we can thank him for a safe trip today.

The Statue

We had a hot paddle back to the launch. Glad we didn't start any later than we did. Lots of kayaks heading out in the heat. We are a early paddle group. Usually the conditions are more favorable early in the morning.
A few more pictures of our trip:

Cindy & Nancy

 

Megan, Tim & Gary

 

Tim

 

Nancy

May 25, 2011

On May 25th we took a mid week unplanned kayak trip to Round Lake.The day was beautiful and too perfect to pass up. Tim got everything loaded up and as soon as Megan got home, we took off for the lake. We met Tim's co-worker, Doug G. there. We paddled straight for the outlet that we love called the Anthony Kill. The water was as smooth as glass. We made good time and were across the lake in no time. We headed down the Anthony kill, zigging & zagging. The water was high enough to easily paddle over a beaver dam that stretches across one section.This was Megan's first time at Round Lake. I was in such a hurry to get there, I forgot my camera. There were some Canada Geese hanging out at the large beaver lodge.I was disappointed that we only saw one heron nest. Normally we see close to a dozen nests!
     We paddled down to the spot where we normally have to turn and head back because we can't get over the beaver dam. Today we were able to float right over it and head much farther than we've ever been. The fern along the shore were beautiful.  At one point we had to sort of "limbo" our way under a tree that had fallen across the creek. We went quite a ways but turned back due to the time. We didn't want to get caught out on the lake at sundown. The mosquitoes were getting a little thick too! I wish we had more time to continue.
On the paddle back we headed straight for the setting sun. Doug took these pictures.

Hopefully we can get back to listen to the carp spawning.

May 8, 2011

For Mother's Day Erin & Megan planned on surprising me with a Mother/Daughter kayak trip. Unfortunately Erin ended up in the ER last night with continuing sickness and was unable to kayak today. We're hoping to go next weekend instead. Tim Megan & I went to Stewart Pond. We headed towards the Conklinville Dam. The water wasn't as high as we thought it would be. It was a little windy and overcast. Not the sunny trip we had hoped for. When we made the turn towards the dam you could really hear the rush of the water as it came over the dam. So different from all of our other times there. We didn't paddle nearly as close as usual. We didn't want any issues with the current created by the water coming over the dam. First I will add a picture of the dam as we normally see it, and then I'll add the picture of the dam as it was today.

Unfortunately we didn't see any Bald Eagles today. We did see a bird soaring pretty high in the sky, but couldn't tell what kind of bird it was.

Megan enjoyed her 2nd trip out in her new boat. We have to get her a life vest so Tim can have his life vest back and stop wearing the old ghetto vest he's had to wear. Her birthday is coming up, so I'm sure she will get some of the things she needs.

On the news tonight we heard that the Conklinville Dam was having some issues with pressure today. Thank GOD that the Dam held up while we were in the water. I don't even want to think about what could have happened. The newsman talked about homes that would have washed away. What about kayakers???

May, 1, 2011 Lake Lonely

We got our start to the 2011 season in at Lake Lonely. Megan was anxious to get her new Eddyline Samba Kayak into the water. The spring rains have delayed our start. Last year we got into the water in April. We chose Lake Lonely so we could look for the Heron nests that Tim & Megan had seen last year when I was unable to kayak because of my torn meniscus.

We headed straight for the area where the nests are. We saw 6 or so nests and several Heron sitting in the trees nearby. We couldn't get as clear a view as we can get on Round Lake. As we continued along the lake, we saw what we believe we have identified as an Osprey. It flew over us and perched on a tree limb. Megan saw another one fly over us with a fish in its' talons. I believe that Osprey are referred to as Sea Hawks. This is the first one I've seen. It was neat.

At the north end of the lake we spotted a large Heron. It was sitting on a stump. We stayed very quiet as we approached and Megan was able to get some good photos before it flew away. It was fun getting as close as we did.

We decide to head to the outlet to the Kaydeross. We paddled into the creek and saw a bunch of new duck houses. As we checked them out Tim saw a large fish in the shallow water. I paddled up to take a look. Tim asked me if I could see it. I told him that all I could see was a log in the water. As I looked further I discovered that the "log" I was looking at was actually the fish. It was very long and somewhat skinny. Tim thinks it might have been a Northern Pike.

As we continued down the creek, it appeared that a lot of the tree limbs had been trimmed back since we were last in there. My favorite tree, "Alligator Log" as I had named it was among those trimmed back.

We turned back when we could feel the water from the Kaydeross pulling our boats. The large amount of rain this Spring has altered the normal flow of the water. It's a tough paddle when you get sucked into it. One spring Tim had to pull me out of some strong current down there.

When we got back up into calmer water we paddled through the woods. Its almost like you are in forbidden territory. The water normally isn't high enough to allow you to paddle through the trees, so when you can, you have to go for it.

We were out almost 2.5 hours. We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon.