Rivanna hippos

Sunday, July 30. I decided to paddle on the reservoir today. The reservoir is a huge lake created by a dam so that the county and city can have something to drink. I love the reservoir because there are no motor boats. Fishing boats with electric trolling motors are allowed, but no internal combustion engines. That means no jet ski's, no dumbasses towing skiers or tubes and that guy that likes to speed up and down the lake at full throttle is nowhere in sight (or to be heard). Sometimes a paddler likes to drop the skeg and paddle. The Rivanna Reservoir is an open-water-loving paddler's dream come true. This is "my upper body hurts" paddling. There is a crew club based on the reservoir, taking advantage of the long, uninterrupted straight stretch of paddling delight. For reasons I can't understand, the crew people are allowed to have outboard engines on the reservoir. Does anybody know why?

The bad thing about this trip: I forgot my camera. No pictures. Remember what I said about turtles being camera shy, here? Not at the reservoir. I had about 67,145 chances to take an award winning photo of a turtle. Horrible luck. A little, tiny baby even surfaced and let me paddle close enough to catch him. I didn't catch him, but being so close started me thinking about Charles Darwins account of the tameness of animals on the Galapagos and other islands he visited. He wrote about birds landing on their hats and one even landed on a canteen as a fella was drinking from it. The animals weren't even startled by a gunshot. Darwin referred to them as stupid, in reality, the animals had never seen humans and the islands lacked predators. Therefore, the animals had no predator, prey instincts and allowed themselves to be knocked out of the air with a hat or hit with the butt of a rifle to be killed. A lot of animals were killed in the name of science until fairly recently. Some countries still practice this sort of "research". (Japan is doing it as you read this to the Right whale, they are probably going to "research" the Right whale into extinction.)

Back to kayaking. I put in at the boat ramp on rt 659 and took off to the left-away from the bridge. A fisherman noted to me how high the water level was as I was preparing my kayak for departure. The water was up, way up. I got really excited knowing I was going to be able to paddle into areas I have never been able to before. This turned into a little exploring expedition for me. The pond area was chopped up by a stiff breeze. The sailor in me was chomping at the bit wishing for a sailboat. After paddling around a couple of bends, I entered territory that was reserved for kayaks only. No other boat could make it back there. With only inches of water between my keel and the muddy bottom, I paddled for hours deep into the woods and further from the fishing boats.

At one point, a wide creek fed into the river. Being a curious paddler, I had to see where it went. I was able to paddle up the creek for about thirty minutes before reaching an area that I would have to walk. I came to paddle, not hike, so I turned around and made my way back to the river. The water in there was amazing. There were very convenient kayak shaped channels that ran the whole way, allowing me to navigate the area like a ship in a channel. It took both of my navigation skills to keep enough water under me to keep from grounding. I love this kind of stuff.

In the creek I saw a duck with three or four babies. They jumped out of the bank behind me after I passed; I never would have seen them if they would have stayed put. And I wish they had stayed. The babies frantically flapped their useless wings and tried to run across the water. Momma just quacked and bravely stayed between me and them, following them out of harms way obviously terrified herself. I felt so bad. They were so scared, even though I hadn't done anything on purpose, it just goes to show even our presence in the wild is enough to disrupt the harmony of things. I also saw a large water snake and a dead turtle. I didn't recognize the turtle carcass at first, so I moved in closer for a better look. It was floating upside down and had apparently been in the water for some time. Looking at the thing through watery eyes and between gags, I finally recognized it as a turtle. I have a weak stomach.

Back in the river I saw a fawn on the banks. It was alone, but still had spots on its sides. We watched each other for a while before she figured it was time to get the hell out of there. I guess a log that paddles itself upstream is pretty scary. Later on in an area I would call a swamp, I came across a large whitetail doe standing in the murky water. She was up to her knees in the green encrusted water looking at me with her left side broad to me. Another awesome photo moment that I totally wasted by NOT BRINGING MY CAMERA.

I headed back to the boat ramp and rested for a while. A lady came down the ramp with a large touring kayak on top of her car. When she asked me for help getting it down, I gladly obliged. I won't tell you about allowing her to fall nearly to her death while carrying the heavy boat. Seriously, I didn't see the hole. I would have warned her! That was some scary shit, carrying a boat then seeing the person on the other side disappear. The boat hung in the air for a second like a cartoon before crashing into the pavement, just missing her head. If you ever read this, ma'am, I know I said it a thousand times yesterday, but I really am sorry! I didn't see the hole.

After I was assured she was OK, I headed back out on the water, this time under the bridge and up towards the crew club. It was in this area I saw my second most favorite thing to see on the water, other paddlers! One guy was paddling a beautiful wooden kayak that he probably built himself. Even his paddle was wood. I really wanted to check it out, but he was smoking in the opposite direction of me and I don't approach strangers very well. I am cool with people approaching me and I will talk to a stranger all day if they will let me. Usually they walk away after a little bit though. But, for some reason, I am always a little leery about approaching people myself. Especially on the water. The way I see, dude is kayaking alone, he probably wants to be left alone. I kayak alone because nobody will kayak with me. I'm very sad. Will you be my friend?

This area of the reservoir is probably perfect for sailing a small boat like a laser or sunfish. I don't know much about the contour of the bottom, but it seems to be pretty sandy, so hitting the ground here wouldn't be too much of an ordeal. I paddled a long way up the res, stopping in marshy places to look for snakes. I don't look to hard for snakes, because they really freak me out. But it is exciting to see them swim. I paddled into an area that must have been a nice hangout for the Rivanna Hippo. You may know them better as cows. I grew up with cows and couldn't resist a little conversation with them. It went like this: "Hi cows!" That's pretty much it. They chewed their cud and looked at me with about as much curiosity as a cow can muster.

The wind was blowing at my back on the way back, making it pretty easy to drift, keeping me from having to paddle too much. The bad thing about following seas, though, is that I feel like I'm not moving even though I was going faster on the way back then previously on the way out. I stayed close to the shore line to assure myself I was moving.

This day of paddling completely made up for the depressing paddle from the day before. I picked up a Big Lots shopping bag from the water and an old soda can. Other than that, I didn't see much garbage. I really love paddling the reservoir. Wish I could sail on it.

Fair winds and following seas.