Kayaking

Last Saturday, my boyfriend and I went kayaking. I adore kayaking. There’s something about gliding just atop the water, being able to zoom along with a few strong, swift paddles. Despite this adoration, I have only managed to go about once a year since I first tried it 6 or so years ago. My boyfriend had never been kayaking before our trip to Lake Quinault last September, when we went out in a two-person kayak.

We went to the Cascade Center at Enatai Park in Bellevue where I’ve kayaked a couple of times before. It was windy on Lake Washington, so we went up the Mercer Slough Nature park rather than staying out on the lake. I’d not gone far up the slough before, but it allows one to make a big circle.

We got to see a good amount of nature there, including ducks and ducklings, geese and goslings (the Canadian goslings were darling in their adult feathers although still half adult size), turtles sunning themselves, lots of blue herons, a black bird with a crown and bright yellow legs that is probably some sort of heron, and lot and lots of mating damselflies. I believe they were blue ringtails, although only the males were blue, while the females were more of a green color. The males and the mating pairs were very attracted to my white kayak, but steered clear of my boyfriend’s blue kayak. The mating seemed to be an odd docking of the end of the male’s tail in a space near the front of the female. Lots of the pairs were in flight for the whole time, some landed on my kayak or used some flotsam that allowed one of them (usually the female) to not be flying (although, in some cases, she seemed utterly submerged in the configuration!).

Between all the wildlife espied and my boyfriend looking particularly outdoorsy in his gear and kayak, I really missed having a camera with me. Do they have waterproof digitals? I need to look into that.