I paddled all the way up Beasley Creek without getting out of the kayak this morning. Just lazy, I guess.

That’s the first time I’ve been able to do that. Either the water’s a little higher this year, or I’ve lost weight. I’ve never been able to paddle any further than about a hundred feet past the mouth of the creek, and then I had to tow the kayak almost all the way to the other end.

That doesn’t stop me from trying to get as far as I can each time, though, and this time around I was surprised when I could keep paddling past the mouth, past the fallen tree, past the bridge and right on up the creek. I thought I was going to ground in the shoal waters just before the Brandt cottage but I even managed to scrape over that and into the deep water at the other end of the creek, just before Orlando Lake.

In fact, I didn’t ground anywhere but right smack in the middle of Knight Lake. That was a little embarrassing. The heron I was watching near the shore distracted me and next thing I knew I was scraping bottom. Luckily, I was able to backpaddle off the rocks and go around.

I didn’t see a soul all the way to Marl Lake, and got nearly all the way back to Knight Lake before I passed a kayaker going the other way. Kayakers are normally friendly people who will wave and say hi as they go by. This guy seemed to be in too much of a hurry to do anything but paddle furiously, leaving me bobbing in his wake.

By the time I got back to Long Lake the coves along the shore were peppered with fishermen casting into the weeds, hunting for the big one. I tried to keep quiet and cross the middle of the lake instead of hugging the shore, but that didn’t play well in the home stretch where some dork was racing around in circles as fast as he could on his jet ski. That has to be the most obnoxious use of an internal combustion engine ever devised by anyone anywhere. Think I’m wrong? Try to paddle a kayak across a lake where anyone’s riding on one.