A Rare Treat

This past weekend during my brother Lee's visit, the weather was pretty lousy. But one reason I like the lake is that aside from pouring rain, the weather is usually good for some activity. Really windy is good for sailing, hot is good for swimming and playing in the water, cool is good for tennis or hiking, and calm and rainy is always good for a paddle.


We took advantage of calm and rainy to paddle out to Windswept Island.

It is one of my favorite spots. It's the kind of place you would go to if you had a great tragedy in your life and wanted to take a year in seclusion and do nothing but read Russian novels. The cabin on Windswept has always been, well, not much more than a shack. To my surprise someone has renovated it into a beautiful little house with a spectacular deck around.

On the way back, we saw four diving birds in the distance. They looked like loons but the coloring wasn't right. As we got close to them, we saw it was indeed a mother loon and three immatures. They were absolutely beautiful. Two of them came up for air within ten feet of my kayak, but skittishly dove under again immediately. This is unfortunately the best picture I got.


It was a rare treat, and one reason I love being out in a kayak as opposed to a motor boat.