A Good Paddling for the Fourth

It's been quite a while since we've been out on a bloggable adventure -- a bike ride from Bartram Gardens into Center City Philadelphia a little over a year ago, in fact -- and (!) February 2023 since we blogged about a paddle.  True, we did take the family paddling on the Brandywine River when they visited this June, but that didn't make the blog, so I don't know whether it can be counted or not.

Anyway, it felt good to get at it, all in, again. Blue Marsh Lake, north of Reading, Pennsylvania, is our favorite local paddling destination. We last paddled it on May 21, 2020.

A month or two ago, we scouted suitable launch sites when we took a hike along the shore of Blue Marsh Lake, and decided that a picnic area on Church Road was the best.  This morning, we packed up the kayak stuff and, for the first time, loaded into the back of our new purple Jeep Gladiator, Barney (that was a whole separate adventure), and unloaded to set out onto Blue Marsh Lake:

It was only 8 am, but picnickers were already setting up, and there were several kayaks and paddle boards already in the water.  Fishermen dotted the near shoreline, so we decided to start our paddle along the far shore.  This was the better choice anyway, because that shore had many coves and inlets for us to explore.  A number of them had bird boxes.  We saw no birds, so we don't know which species likes these:

It being early July, the one flower we saw blooming was David's favorite, the daylily, and there were two or three large clusters:

Even early in the morning, it was already 80F, with a clear blue sky, and the turtles took the opportunity to sun themselves on their favorite logs.  If you paddle, you know that turtles are extremely shy and will slide off their rock or log into the water if you get very near.  As a consequence, the photos are few, but we did get one good one:

Another advantage of the shoreline we chose is that it was generally the southern one, and so we had intermittent shade to cool us as we paddled leisurely along.  Kathy was particularly interested in the fish situation, and she spotted a number of large rises.

She even spotted this huge bass lure hanging from a tree, abandoned by some unlucky (or unskilled) fisherman working the shoreline from a trolling boat:

David, on the other hand, examined the flora, and found a few pretty specimens:

Herons and raptors are always the grand prize in our paddling hunts, and we were not disappointed.  We saw several great blue herons and smaller (probably green) herons.  We got to watch one great blue kick another one out of his favorite fishing spot.  The victorious bird eyed us suspiciously as we paddled past:

For the most part, the day was very bright, which made it difficult to get photos with silhouettes, but, as we turned one direction, we found a submerged fallen tree that was in the right light for a profile image:

After an hour, we stopped for a snack and then turned around.  We paddled back along the opposite shore, which was generally less shadowed and made for fewer photographs, but we were able to catch another shot of a pretty clump of daylilies:

And David, ever alert, got lucky to catch fetching flora and fauna in one foto:

As we neared the end of our trip, a solid 2 hours, David remarked that he hadn't seen any ducks, which is unusual in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Kathy agreed, but recounted that she had seen some very cheeky geese at our launch spot, begging scraps from the early picnickers. Sure enough, as we returned to the beach where we began, the flock of geese stood guard, making sure that no one would pass without paying a toll:

We had nothing to pay, but the boss ganders let us pass, probably because their bellies were already full from all the paddle boarders, jet skiers, kayakers and partiers that had arrived at the beach since we had set out. The day was getting hot, the beach noisy, the parking lot full, and we made haste to leave before we got hot, irritated and parked in.

Not bad for a long-delayed paddle adventure.  We had a lot of fun and have started planning our next -- possibly a fishing/paddling/hiking/camping trip to Promised Land State Park.  Stay tuned!