Did it to meself

And damned glad I did.

Found ALL the little issues with my gear. 

And I’m gonna need a bigger boat.

Mehbe not cuz of the fishies though,,,,

Volume and speed,  more volume than speed.   Fully loaded, Lyssa maxed at 4 and cruised at 3.4.  Those are BlueJeans numbers.  Granted, it was wyld water day and paddling uphill slows a body down,  but I could feel how sluggish she was.   Aft waves had more control over her than usual: might have been a balance of weight issue, she was pretty loaded,,,

Longer is faster, longer with higher decks means more (or in my case, better loaded) gear.  Needz a bigger boat if I wanna get serious about playing with kayakamping,,,,

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Back at the Buffalo now.  Lyssa n gear all loaded up; just takin’ a minute to re-orient meself.   Just paddled 4 miles of open water, straight line right down the middle of the lake.  No boat traffic to speak of today (yet).   Time to go home and set it all back up and get some fans blowing the moisture out, get some other stuff cleaned up (including me).

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and home now,,,, porch looks like a damned rummage sale with gear stretched out on lines to dry and a tent set up on one side.   Voo is truly cunfuzzed about all the smells of woods and lake and fishes and Dawg only knows what else was out there.   At least he isn’t trying to mark everything as his,,,, I might get a bit miffed if that leg hikes up,,,,

I’d love to give y’all an exciting story of adventure and what not, but,,, Hell, I was cooped up in a tent for 12 stinking hours, mostly sleeping it away, sitting out storms.   I think there were three that blew through overnight.   I know come 5 AM, it was silent as the grave out there, no boat traffic, no winds, no thunder, no flashing dancing lights in the sky.

and WET!!!  

And I figured out, a tarp does NOT work as a ground cloth for a tent.   The only thing DRY around that campsite was UNDER THAT TARP and everything over it was wet or damp as hell.  Including inside the tent.   I had standing water under the sleep-pad when I packed out.   SO,,,, Either the tent had a leak (one very small one I did see) or I kept tracking it in with me when I braved the downpours to take a leak (most likely scenario).  Normally when I camp, I use a rainfly and a hammock.   I would have done so this trip, but I wanted that ‘wet test’ of the tent.   If I am kayakamping, there may be times where I won’t have access to trees that will support a hammock so I keep that tent as an ‘alternate’.   It didn’t fail, but my ‘delight’ in it is less than stellar.   I do like my hammock though, so I am a bit biased.

All in all, was a good shake-down run of my gear, and only one item is getting changed out.   Would like a folding skillet instead of the 10″ kitchen skillet I took, but it worked, worked well and stowed “well enough” (that handle was the glitch in stowage.) 

No bear run-ins (did see tracks on the beach) no punked skunks trying to raid my food,,,,      Actually, I didn’t see a damned thing as for wildlife yesterday.   I did see a flock of geese on the wing this morning, but that was it.   I guess all the traffic ran everyone under cover,,,,

Home, safe, dry and clean; all the gear is getting in the same shape, slowly.

and tomorrow is socialists day,,, Thinking of my post for that and will tap it out laters.    

Live

Learn

Laugh

LOAD

ROFLMAO UPDATE!   Finished putting the last of things away, rolled up and back in thier respective bags, and RRRRuuummmmBBBBLlelleesss!!!   Bam!!! Kentucky Monsoon hits,,,, Sitting here on the porch watching the water fall, but it sure is a pleasant change being able to look out at it while dry, compared to being cooped up in an enclosed tent with only hearing (of which, mine is faulty) to warn of dangers.