The north side of Chestermere Lake is the quieter side. The speed limit is 12 kph on the north side and it is mostly obeyed. Mostly. That makes it the safe side of the lake for human powered craft, even if it is smaller. Today I decided I would take a risk on paddling to the south side as it was very early and there should be little to no boat traffic. I was the first person on the lake today as far as I could tell.
I got there at about 5:40 am this morning and there were maybe two or three other vehicles in the large parking lot, at most. This is the same parking lot that overflows and you can’t get a space in on Saturday evenings.
I got my preferred type of space this morning, with grass to the immediate left of my driver door. My pump and cord reach the board beautifully without me having to mess around with the extension cord.
Once the board was inflated it was a matter of installing my kayak seat, the foot rest, and heading over the the kayak and paddle board launch that is on the side of the dock. It makes it super easy to get your craft on and off the water without having to get your feet wet.
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-01
Lake, Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-01
Chestermere, AB, 2024-07-31
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-01
While I have always enjoyed getting a sunrise or sunset reflection shot off of water from the shore, I’m starting to discover that sunrises and sunsets are even more magical when you can capture them from out in the middle of a lake.
I paddled under the bridge that separates the two sides of the lake and noticed a bit of interesting graffitti on the underside of the structure. It’s kind of weird to see Trump stuff sprayed around up north in Canada, although we do have some idiots here who think he is all that.
The south side of the lake feels huge to me, as I’m not really used to being on this side now. I used to launch on this side back when I got my ill-fated inflatable kayak a few years back and then discovered how useless it was. I actually biffed it in boat wake and lost my Samsung Galaxy S10+ halfway down the trees on the left side, back in 2021. It was an expensive oops. A boat sped past us and tried to flip us on purpose. He didn’t get my daughter, but he did get me. For this reason, being on this side of the lake puts me well outside of my comfort zone.
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-01
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-01
So, yeah. It’s safe to say that I’m still a bit nervous on this side of the lake. I had made it past the public beach and launch on the south side and decided to turn around and head back. If you click to embiggen the GPS track image at the top, the small beach is called Chestermere Spot and it’s at the bottom.
Lake, Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-01
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-01
I did grab a selfie and some gratuitous board shots on my trip back to the dock on the south side. I was halfway back when the first speed boat appeared with a water skier behind it. He was actually pretty good about keeping his distance from me but, man, did he generate some good wake. The nice thing about this board is that it is super stable. I didn’t even bother turning into the wake, I just rode it out and then kept paddling.
The GPS log says that I paddled 4.1 km this morning, which is great. I barely felt it today and I wasn’t tired when I got back to my vehicle. When I first started paddle boarding this year I was out-of-shape and was wiped by the time I had to pack away the board. I just couldn’t do it without help. Now it’s a fast and easy job on my own.
The last image in this post is, ironically, the first one I took today. I wandered the very short distance from where my board was inflating to the street in front of the municipal building and grabbed a picture of it with alpenglow behind. I like how much classier the lines of the Chestermere municpal building compared to ours in Strathmore.
I was on the water at 6:04 am this morning and off the water by 7:25 am. I made it home by 7:59 am leaving me time to have a coffee with The Missus out on the deck before logging into my work system. Hitting a lake is great way to start the day.
Blog note: Today makes it officially six months since I launched this blog for Ray, or half a year. I have added over 1,600 images to my portfolio in this time. I had expected to have trouble producing enough content for each day and sometimes I have, but it’s not a daily struggle. All too often I produce so much content in a day that it’s a slog to get it online in a timely fashion. Here’s to the second half of the year and then we’ll see if I will keep going daily after that.
Today’s images are mostly from my OM System (Olympus!) Tough TG-7 camera. A few are from my phone, but I’m too tired to label them. You get to guess on this one. Sorry.
