More photos from the night paddle

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Originally uploaded by Iron Bieso

As you can see, it's darn hard to shoot with a P&S camera in darkness, but this is about the best one of the "moon shots" we took.

More coming.

J


Here are some additional photos from our night paddle. The lake was glass, and once we got clear of the Norwegian Creek Campground that's located on the northwest side of Lake Benton, we were out into real dark, it was great.





We found the "night portrait" setting on our Olympus worked pretty well for the photos, but one does have to hold it steady for a considerable time to make the images proper.

This one was just a flash shot but it shows how calm the water was on our trip.
Laura really liked the trip, and it was a good way to just get out and paddle without worrying about wind and all that daytime nonsense.
Plus summer will end some day, and we don't want that day to come without putting a few night miles on our boats.


We didn't spend too much time on the water, and the nice light by the dock (and all the noise from the campground) guaranteed our safe return to the car. This photo's a bit blurry, but it showed the nice sandy beach from where we launched.

If you haven't night paddled this summer, do it before it's too late, and always do so on a lake. Sweepers, debris, and other challenges on a river would be way-dangerous in the darkness.

Peace and love,

Jarett and Laura

Night boat to Lake Benton

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Originally uploaded by Iron Bieso

Cue sax music, but only if you know the Madness song on which I copied our post headline this time out.

Saturday, July 19, we night paddled Lake Benton. It was a great night to be on the water, with lots of moon and mirrored glass. In all, it was a hoot. More photos to follow, these certainly show us in the dark, it was a great jaunt.

Jarett

Lake Shaokatan, Minnesota

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Originally uploaded by Iron Bieso

Laura and I got up pretty early on Sunday (for us) and headed east and north to Lake Shaokatan, a small lake about 10 miles north of Lake Benton, about five miles from the state line.

The lake is a bit hard to find, but if you were coming from the interstate, take the Brookings exit, head east on Highway 14, keep going into Minnesota until you reach County Road 1, go north about nine miles, then east on County Road 15, that'll put you at the southwest corner of the lake.

We accessed it on the north side, at this dock in the photo.

The access point is nice, featuring an outhouse style restroom and plenty of parking. We had the place to ourselves as we prepared to go.


We hugged the northern shore, passing cabins on our way to the far eastern end of the lake.

What happened when we cleared the shoreline wind break? Well, weathercocking took Laura out into the lake, and we were suddenly facing a crossing or other unpleasant choices in the windswept waves of this once-seemily harmless little lake.

Paddling the Current Designs Sirocco, I found myself longing for my QCC, the Sirocco is fast, sure, and stable enough, but it's still so new to me that I was not feeling much confidence.



This is about the only "out there" shot we took, as we were struggling to get straight on the waves and wind. We decided (in part because of a dumping we took on Lake Benton a while back) to reverse course and go down the shoreline again, to see how our luck would hold on the other end of the lake.

We made it there, and we could hear the wind screaming through the trees, but between the milfoil and the biting flies, plus all the wind and waves, we decided to make it a shorter trip than we had planned.

We did see a few ducks, but for the most part, the section of lake we explored was cabins and quiet. It felt good to get back on the water, and we're going to be full-on exploring for the rest of July and August.

Jarett and Laura Bies

Yes, once a month is lame

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Originally uploaded by Iron Bieso

For a kayaking couple's blog. What I mean is the last post was ... a month old. Sorry.

With our only rack-equipped car in the shop, the holiday weekend, and sundry things, it's been weak, our postings and outings. But we get the car back soon, have a second set of racks - we'll be blogging about the "make a ladder rack a kayak rack on a pickup topper" soon - coming for the truck, and we're jonesing laketime.

Here's a photo from the quartet paddle on the BSR that I did June 26. It was admittedly a semi-lame route, i.e., we had done this area before, and the weather was shite that day.

We did go down past the bridge, and the area is wide, but in high winds and this sky, we said, "let's just take it in to the end."

Mad props to Pat Wellner and his pal, Arnie, who both drove beaucoup to take part in the trip.

I'm gunning to hit Lake Shakotan in MN Sunday, if not sooner. We will be dialing in some lakes 'round Brookings County asap.

Don't forget Saturday's deal @ Grass Lake (www.sdcka.blogspot.com) and the July 26 "Down to Klondike" trip as well.

Peace,
Jarett