Paddling Blue Marsh Lake from Peacock Creek

This last week, we fished a stretch of Blue Marsh Lake between Lake Road and Spring Creek.  Today we decided to revisit the area, just focusing on the paddling, scenery and wildlife.  We learned our lesson about putting in from Lake Road because of the steep, 1/3 mile portage for the kayaks.  Today, we put in at a small location at Peacock Creek.  We got to the water at about 10:30, which was just in time, because, just after we pulled up to the parking area, six more kayakers pulled in and started unloading.  We, however, being highly organized, had no trouble putting into the water ahead of the crowd and starting a peaceful, socially distant paddle.  Here is Kathy where we put in:

The first part of the paddle was down Peacock Creek toward the lake.  It reminded us strongly of paddling through the mangrove swamps in Georgia and Florida, or the bayous in Louisiana, the growth was so dense:

In shallower, undisturbed stretches, the water was very clear and give us a continuing documentary of aquatic flora and fauna.  While there might also have been fry in the waters, this was our view of the underwater flora --

-- and this cheeky little bird gave us our first view of lakeside fauna:

After 5 or 10 minutes of paddling, we caught our first glimpse of the lake, out the channel of Peacock Creek:

Some days, the turtles are scarce on the lakeshore.  Today they were plentiful, including this fat one who kept his pose long enough for us to get this close-up:

A few short paddle strokes later, and we encountered more of the turtle community, celebrating the re-opening of things after the Covid-19 lockdown:

The humans certainly are celebrating the reopening.  We ran into fishing boats and kayaks everywhere we paddled, although the large size of the lake kept us socially distant.

Feisty storms blew threw the area last week, and as we paddled along the shore we spotted two tree that, judging by the freshness of their green leaves, just blew down in that storm:

Some unexplained concrete pier-like structure juts out from the banks of Peacock Creek near where it empties into Blue Marsh Lake.  We pulled up alongside to see if we could ferret out its meaning and history, but all we could determine is that some kids had played on it and left some of their things behind:

When we fished this stretch, we noticed several birdhouses along the shore.  This time, as we paddled leisurely, we had time to appreciate how much shelter they provided local birds:

 The day was almost windless, with bright sun, a cloudless sky, no humidity, and balmy temperatures.  Consequently, the lake surface was like glass in places, giving us some beautiful reflections of trees along the shoreline:

The goose family we had encountered while fishing last week is still enjoying their sojourn on Spring Creek.  The kids are a little older, looking more like teenagers than toddlers.  All eyed us with suspicion as we paddled past:

Where Spring Creek shallowed out, we encountered a family with a little boy trying their hands at fishing with homemade fishing poles.  The little guy pointed out proudly that it was a stick with a string.  We asked whether they'd caught anything, and they answered that they had not, but it was clear they had caught some precious fun.

We paddled back out toward the lake on Spring Creek and made a detour up a small stream leading to a wooden bridge we had hiked across a few weeks ago when we traipsed around this part of Blue Marsh Lake.  This time, we saw the bridge from the water:

This was certainly a different perspective on the bridge!

Just as we were returning down the small creek under the bridge, a family of trail bikers rode across the bridge, and the two kids, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, paused to pepper us with questions about why we were up here where the water was so shallow.  We tried to answer their inquiries as straightforwardly as we could, then wished them a happy journey for the rest of their bike ride.

By this time, it was 12:30 pm and we had been on the water for one-and-a-half hours.  We sought out lunch at a spot we had paused for lunch when we hiked this stretch -- the spot where Sleepy Hollow Road dives down under the water and becomes a perfect kayak ramp:

As we approached our lunch spot, a bearded fellow with a cowboy hat rode down to the water on his horse, accompanied by a young puppy, a Bernese-St. Bernard mix.  The puppy romped around in the water and, being friendly, wanted to swim out and hop in David's kayak.  His owner allowed as how the puppy was so big that it might swamp the kayak, so David was cautious in greeting the puppy.  Luckily, a hiker with two Springer Spaniels walked down to the water and engaged the horseback rider in dog conversation.  We waited patiently while they completed their talk and went their separate ways -- and then beached our kayaks to stretch and eat our lunch of peanut-butter-and-jelly-on-sourdough.  This was our lake view:

The remains of one beautiful iris still graced the lakeshore near our lunch spot, so David made sure to capture it before it was gone forever:

We had a little more than an hour to paddle before we had to return back to our campground and pick up our regular Sunday dinner box from Stoudt's Brewery and Restaurant.  Kathy wanted to explore some of the lake on the other side of our prior fishing put-in spot at Lake Road, so we paddled upstream to that area.  We turned a corner to see the most horrible sight we could imagine:  a flotilla of fishing boats and hordes of kayaks all heading our way from a nearby day use boat ramp area!  Before turning tail and taking possession of the far bank of the lake, we stopped to admire this little birch tree that, somehow, found a way to spring from a dead tree trunk that was stretched out along the shallow part of the lake:

We then paddled back to our put-in spot on Peacock Creek, staying ahead of the other kayakers but being passed repeatedly by boaters with motors.  We passed the cliffside spot where we had seen large numbers of teenagers partying, paddleboarding and such last week when we were fishing -- and they were still at it this week.  Someone had found a deep spot in the lake just out from the cliff, and the kids were serially leaping out, about 20 feet down to the water, swimming back to shore and clambering up the cliff, then repeating.  We paddled silently past, admiring their enthusiasm.

As we exited the water, we were followed out by the very same two couples who had put in at Peacock Creek immediately after us.  They had seemed inconvenienced by our presence earlier in the morning when they arrived, but this repeat probably added insult to injury, because they tried their best to pretend we didn't exist as they threw their kayaks into their pickup truck and maneuvered out from the parking area and away from the lake.

We, however, had our hearts set on that Stoudt's box.  We drove with legal deliberate speed to the restaurant, took the goodies home, and are about to enjoy a tasty calzone.

Cheers!