Last night was soooooo hot and smoky that I gave up on the notion of hitting the water with a paddle board. I just didn’t have it in me and the hot wind saps one’s strength quickly. The air was also chewy from forest fire smoke that is blowing in. I decided I would get up early this morning and head to Chestermere Lake at Chestermere, AB, at 5:30 am instead.
The sun had just popped over the horizon and the air was already getting hazy with smoke, but it was tolerable enough. I inflated my board and made for the water.
I was originally inflating my board with a hand pump, but I discovered that by the time this was done I was too exhausted to paddle and really just wanted to pack the board away again, like on the spot. That’s why I have an electric pump now. I had just been clipping my keys to the back of my board until my daughter asked if the fob was waterproof. Probably not, thus the clear plastic pouch it lives in now when the keys are clipped to my board.
Chestermere Lake has a very handy launch for kayaks and boards, making it my preferred place to hit the water, although I am okay with just wading out and hopping on a board now as well. That’s the point-of-view at above right as one pushes off of the launch.
Any friends or family who have actually been following my paddle board posts will notice that stuff has slowly been appearing. This is in response to problems I have experienced. The water shoes were purchased after getting first degree burns on the soles of my feet on a hot beach.
I have discovered that a wet kayak paddle is slippery. REALLY slippery. One good squip-p-p-p and the sucker is out of your hands. I have also seen enough paddles at the bottom of the water now to realize that many don’t float like they are advertised to. That is why grips appeared on the paddle along with a kayak paddle tether. The gloves with silicone grips were also added to prevent me from dropping the darn thing. They all really help I have discovered.
My camera can run a GPS track while I am on the go and tell me where each photo came from. I used the feature today out of curiosity and was surprised to discover I paddled just over 2.6 km this morning. It really didn’t feel that far, which tells me that the condition of my arms is improving nicely. This would have killed me a month ago.
I have never been on Chestermere Lake this early in the day before and it was amazing. I was the only person on the water and it is wonderful to have an entire lake to yourself. There were remarkably few bugs bothering me. It was already 20C at 6:00 am so I managed to miss the worst heat of the day that appeared later on. There was smoke haze, but it was tolerable. Same for the wind, which only really kicked up toward the end when I was heading back to the kayak launch to head home.
There’s nothing like a good start to the work day.
All images are courtesy of my OM System Tough TG-7 save for the screenshot from Google Maps.
