Aqua-Bound

Day 332: What a day! A friend alerted me to a new "paddle cache" near Yelm a couple of days ago, and when I looked at it to get the specifics, I discovered that there were actually five on the sprawling, multi-armed lake. I mapped them out with National Geographic's "Topo!" program and traced a route of approximately 3.5 miles round trip. That, I said to self, is easily do-able. I put the project on my agenda for Saturday, but then was reminded of the holiday weekend by another friend. When you live alone, holidays don't signify. They're easily forgotten, and often leave you snarled in traffic if you foolishly decide to go to town. Saturday suddenly seemed less appealing, but the weather forecast for today was less than perfect. I went to bed with some trepidation.

When I got up this morning, I saw blue through gaps in the clouds. I made the final decision to go for it. By the time I hit Eatonville, I was regretting it. It was simply pouring buckets, in my mind filling the 'yak on the roof and soaking the seat. However, when I reached the blinking light on Hwy 7, rain ceased and puffy white sheep were gambolling on a field of blue. The Weather Gods had smiled on me for my doggedness. The 'yak was only moderately damp inside, and the seat wasn't the least bit soggy.

I launched on Lake St. Clair about 10:30 and was almost at the furthest cache when I realized I'd forgotten something very important. When you're logging five-star hides, you'd bloody well better have signed the log! And that's rather hard to do when you don't have a pen. With less than 300 feet to go to my primary destination, I turned around and started paddling back 'round the rabbit (a chocolate-bunny shaped peninsula) toward the car. Then it occurred to me that I was passing right by a full-sized "regular" cache I'd planned to do later in the day. Surely it would have a pen in it! I was in luck. With the borrowed pen, I "drove" the 'yak back to my intended starting point, found the cache and signed the log. Yes, I returned the pen later.

I faced another challenge with several of the caches. The owner (person who placed them) had not taken short-torsoed, short-armed tiny people into account. In water of unknown depth, I did not want to risk standing up in the 'yak to unscrew a tiny Bison tube hung in a tangle of cedar boughs swinging low over the water! By means of strange contortions, I retrieved that cache and (harder still) replaced it after I'd signed in. Two others were similarly placed. But oh, I was impressed by the tight places the 'yak could reach!

After all the caches had been found, I lengthened the day with explorations of all the lake's major arms (and it has quite a few). In total, my paddle covered approximately seven miles. The weather, for all of its wet beginnings, had turned into perfection. Now I'm ready to bide at home through the busy holiday weekend.