With apologies to Deep Purple, but it’s not just the title of a song. It’s what happens when you head out for an evening on the lake brimming with unbridled optimism. There was a hint of smoke in the air when I hit the water, but I have to say that it looked nice enough to give it a try…
Yeah, well, it didn’t last. That is a picture taken from the north end of the lake. That would be at the top of the GPS tracks below:
About 40 minutes of paddling later I was at the southern portion of the GPS track on the lake when the smoke decided to roll back in.
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-16
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-16
It was vile. My eyes and throat burned. My lungs even more so. I was about 1.5 km from the dock when I was ambushed and I was fairly wheezing by the time I got back to the launch and retrieved my board from the water. It sucked because it was a beautiful night up until that point.
It has been threatening to rain and it sprinkled on me a bit at the outset, then the sky started to clear off again. I headed north along the west short of the lake and was treated to quite a sight in the reeds. There were a couple hundred blackbirds in them. Both red winged and yellow capped. I did not know that the males of each species mixed like that. There was a roar of them all taking off when I got too close. It was something else.
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-16
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-16
It was really just a lovely night. The water was relatively smooth and the smoke was at a minimum. The air had been freshened up by the spot of rain and the insects were at a minimum.
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-16
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-16
The sweet light was hitting as I headed south on the east shore of the lake so I paused occasionally to work some reflections as I passed docked boats and colourful craft on the shore. One homeowner gave me stinkeye when he realized I was photographing his private dock, so I returned it with interest. He lost the staring contest and wandered off.
There was just enough smoke in the sky to make for some great sunset images, but not so much that it was bothering me yet. It was neat how the colours shifted as the sunset progressed.
I didn’t get a lot of images in as I was mostly intent on optimizing my time on the water. It had been a few days since I had been able to get on the lake and I just needed to paddle and work my arms out. Which I did until the smoke came back with a vengeance.
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-16
Chestermere, AB, 2024-08-16
It was about forty-five minutes past sunset when I got my last photos from the water and then hauled my board off the lake. I had to use the dehaze tool in Photoshop to get some contrast back into the images. It was a pretty good outing even though I got a lungful of forest fire crap on the way back.
I’m still grateful for being able to get out even if it isn’t always perfect.
The evening’s images were captrued using an OM System (Olympus!) Tough TG-7.
