Can you carry (canoe carry)?

I have a dear friend who loves the Adirondacks even more than me. She and her family were here last weekend and proposed a canoe trip. Really a canoe circumnavigation of several lakes with four fairly long portages, a nice word for long walks lugging your boat. I think the paddling was about 10 miles and carries totaled about 3 miles.

We brought our two kayaks and also brought wheels. It was still pretty hard getting over the portages. My kayak weighs about 42 pounds and Tim’s is around 60 lbs.

By the end of our seven hour journey, I could barely get myself out of the boat. It was too cold to swim but I managed to get wet anyway. I flipped the boat getting in and dumped myself in the water. Very graceful.

Taking a break

The happy family

We made it

When we got home, we looked up lightweight canoes. But really, I love my kayak, which I bought in 1996. For a long time, I considered it my best leisure investment. So we’ll just have to avoid the carries.

While we camped…

Covid hit our small rural community’s nursing home. I checked my messages before climbing into my sleeping bag and my son told me there were 24 new cases. My town has about 1000 people so that is significant. Today the number is in the 40’s and three people have died. We personally are back to shutdown.

This cloud descended this morning at home.

While we were still oblivious we enjoyed a kayak camping trip. We found a great island site, swam, parked, sat by the fire, and dined on freeze dried delights.

In preparation for camping this summer, I bought a new Coleman fold n go camp stove but I cannot recommend it. One of the ignitors failed (don’t tell them but I finally fixed it myself) and I am not getting anywhere with their warranty department. A month goes by before I get an email response. I received this today.

Joelyn at Coleman? Come on, this has to be made up. Who else works there? Roman? Herman? Roland? We’ll see next month.

My stout is stout

It’s time. My batch of stout has fermented and carbonated so we cracked one open last night. It’s no match for Guinness but it was good. It had a little foamy head and a pretty good taste. I think something other than white sugar might have given it more of a caramel flavor.

We had a day and a half of isolation but now we’re full again. A group of seven working bees from Friends of Deal Island are here for a couple of weeks. Their main goal will be to continue to eradicate invasive plants.

We brought the Ute and trailer down to the jetty to haul their gear and food up the hill. We had to scatter a gaggle of Cape Barren Geese on the way down.

While we waited on the beach for our visitors to arrive, I encountered this dog face rock on the beach.

And a couple of wallabies drinking from a tidal pool.

A lovely yawl anchored in East Cove after at least 30 minutes of trying, and a group of sea kayakers, associated with the Westminster School in Adelaide, came ashore as we were heading up the hill. Company!
We have heard not too many people on the mainland are aware there are islands, some even inhabited by more than two caretakers, in the Bass Strait. This group was asked if they would sleep in their kayaks at night!