#SundayPaddle: Huron River/Island Lake

If you stopped by for coffee on Sunday, you know that my plan was to originally head out to Island Lake Recreation Area and paddle around Kent Lake and the various cool little islands, something I’ve not done since grade school since we skated there on the ice.

There was rain the forecast, but I was hell bent on going, especially since my Friday afternoon jaunt was cancelled after seeing the amount of algae and crap on Newburgh Lake. I’m glad I walked down to the water and took a look before taking my boat down off my car.

I noped it out of there and tried Wilcox and Phoenix lakes, but they were the same.  Probably the weather and water temp, as it’s not always like this.

You can imagine my happiness on Sunday when my niece responded back to  my invite and said not only could she meet me, but would I like to paddle the river?  OMG!  I packed a cooler, loaded my boat and off I went. This is the kind of arrangement that works great if you paddle with someone else and either you or they can carry two boats with their vehicle. I unfortunately, can carry just my boat. So I followed my niece to the end where we parked her truck and rode back to the launch in mine.

They have a cool rail system to slide your canoe/kayak, down this gravel hill to the river.

Great idea, except mine kept sliding off and it eventually fell between the rails, dumping the entire contents of my boat into the grass: cooler, waterproof box containing my keys, phone, sunscreen, paddle and depth finder.  Nice.  I would have snapped a pic but we were holding up the line.

We said the hell with it and carried our boats down the rest of the way to the launch, which is just on the other side of the dam.

What an amazing day! This was the first time I’d taken my own kayak down a river, so needless to say, I was elated, though I understand this kind of experience isn’t exactly extraordinary. But I was in heaven.

We took the longer trip about 2.5 – 3 hours, and I knew when I put in that would not be long enough!  My niece, who is an avid paddler, was my tour guide and pointed out things along the way, like good places to swim and also two first come, first serve campsites!! I have ALWAYS wanted to take an overnight paddle trip.

We floated past this huge turtle!  Not a great pic.  And he would not be our last.

Approaching the take out point, we came across two more, which reminded me of a father having a talk with his son.

After one last dip in the river after we pulled our boats up on shore, we loaded up in my niece’s truck and drove back to the launch.  She was a dear and helped me strap down my boat before we said our goodbyes. For an afternoon of rain, we SO lucked out!

Until about an hour after I got home.

The skies opened up before I could get my boat unloaded from my car. I wasn’t worried about it since it needed a bath anyway and all my other gear was inside. But later that night when I finally went to unload the boat, I figured the water would have drained out the scupper holes (term I learned from my niece, I have a sit on kayak).

Not all the water.

I undid the straps, pulled it down off the back of my car and took a SHOWER.    Hahaha.

Once back in the garage, I changed into dry clothes for the second time today.

How fun. It was an awesome paddle I hope to do again soon.