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Sea Kayak Trips Bulletin Board
1999 Trip #5 - Flathead Lake
Posted By: Shawn Baker
Date: Tuesday, 20 April 1999, at 11:15 a.m.
Yep, it was a beautiful weekend in one of the most gorgeous places on earth. I went up to the church camp on Flathead Lake with a group of Jr. High kids--the camp I went to when I was their age. Got there just at sunset on Friday night, ate burgers andweenies, and went to the campfire, sang songs, ate S'mores, and then all but 1 kid went back to the cabin to play bored games. I looked up and lo-and-behold, I saw the Aurora Borealis for only the second time in my life. At first, it was just a wide band stretching across the northern sky, and then the sheets started stretching to the south. At one point, I could see every color of the rainbow and the colors were dancing and weaving around each other. At this point, we felt guilty for not telling the kids back at the cabin, but we didn't want to miss anything! I ran back and got them. When I got back, the colors had faded somewhat, but there were eddies of light that stretched across the entire sky. Awesome!
Anyhow, this set the stage for a great weekend of paddling whenever I got a free moment.
Got up at 7:00am on Saturday morning and paddled to Shelter and Cedar Island. Another awesome, peaceful non-jetski-season paddle. The paddle out was very calm, about 50*F, and VERY sunny. I could just pick out the silhouette of the island in the sunrise. I didn't put my contacts in or bring my sunglasses, so my eyes were a bit sore when I got to Shelter. There were birds all over the shores. I saw about 12-13 mating pairs of Canada Geese, and 4 Mallards. I didn't want to bug them, so I paddled over to Cedar. I had paddled around Shelter Island last summer when I was at the camp, but I didn't paddle across the tiny strait between them to Cedar. Those islands are so gorgeous! I heard an eagle cry, but couldn't pick it out in the morning sun. I also saw 2 loons on my way back in.
I'm still having problems with my feet and legs falling asleep, so I'm going to have to try to cut down my seat, build some different footrests, or something. I hit my first "loving" stone at the end of my trip. I rammed it right down the front of the keel, and I yelled, "#@*&".(synonym to "love") It peeled back the glass for about 2" and exposed the wood. It dinged the wood up about 1/4" above the keel. Oh well, I'll just have to fix it. I wish we'd put an extra layer of glass tape on the outside of the keel and chines.
Later that afternoon, I let one of the kids paddle my boat around--it's amazing how fast kids take to kayaks--and I took my brother's for a spin. I was rolling it (showing off) I broke the bottom of one of his "cheek plates". Actually, I was just bracing, and laying the boat completely over on its side and the bottom popped. His plates were built from 6mm okoume that extended from the coaming down to the bottom hull panel. They were epoxied in, but not glassed. I remember telling someone on the Building BBS that I liked his cheekplates better than my foam block hip pads, but cheekplates should be glassed in, especially if you were going to trust the boat on a multi-day expedition paddle.
I'll epoxy it back in and then cover the fillet with a piece of glass tape so it doesn't happen again. I like the way the cheekplates permit storage behind them, but my hip pads do hold you in a lot tighter. Guess it'll be boat repair for now instead of boat-paddling, but I enjoy working on boats. Maybe my subconscious was mad at me for not building anything for the past 6 months!
Shawn
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