Friday, June 28, 2019

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Last weekend from CT I bought a Pelican 100X, a 10' kayak. In addition I bought the paddle, life jacket and kayak carrier. I had measured my locker in the basement of the apartment building to be sure, first, if a 10' kayak would fit; and it does.

Here is the locker room in the basement with my locker in the center.


Unlocked the lock and opened the door.

Here you can see the kayak inside with the carrier on the floor next to it.

It is a bit awkward to get it out of there and out on to the street, but fortunately, there is a doorway from the basement to a lowered part so I do not need to carry the kayak up or down any stair wells. Once outside, I was able to secure the kayak to the kayak carrier and put within the kayak all of the supplies.

I walked the kayak through the parking lot of my apartment building complex and then into the tunnel that goes beneath the train tracks and the highway to get to the south side of the train tracks and highway. Fortunately, the entrance and the exit to the tunnel are sloped passages rather then steps, so these next two photos show the turnabout on the north side of the tunnel.


Here, in the midst of the tunnel.

Here, outside of the tunnel on the south side of the highway and train tracks.

It is straight from the tunnel exit to this street; the water can be seen in the distance, that is Lac St. Louis.


Where this street meets the water, it is thick with plant life and very steep, so it is far from ideal for launching a kayak into the water. This doesn't stop me, however, I push the kayak through the trees and bushes and it slides down into the water. Here it is at the top, partially pushed in.

This photo was supposed to show the water, through the branches, but it is so thick it is difficult to even see the water.

But finally, I reached the water at the bottom.

I had a blue cloth bag with me, sufficiently vibrant that if I knew roughly where to look to return back to it, I could find my way back to the kayak carrier and my route home. So I left the bag there, and left my mobile device in it (what I used to take all of the photos). As this was my first foray into this kayak on this lake and I hadn't been in one since the previous summer at a camp on a more protected lake, I did not want to take any chances and so took only the bare minimum with me on the kayak.

I went out for perhaps 30-40 minutes; it was nice, good for upper body exercise, but also nice to take the occasional break and just look around. Once I finally decided to return and head back I had gotten fairly far out, so I centered in on what I thought was the location of the blue bag, and came pretty close; once I reached near the shore I just had to go, say, another 10 meters or so and that's where the bag was.

If I manage to do this with more regularity, I think I'll begin to learn better the landmarks and be able to zone in more precisely on where I need to land.

The next time I go, if the water is sufficiently calm, I'll bring my mobile device to take photos from out on the water. I'll have a ziploc bag of some sort to keep it in when not in use.

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