Saturday was a little drizzly and Sunday was supposed to be more of the same, except windier. All six of us voted to kayak on the lakes. This time our guide was Shale, if her name is spelled as it sounds. Oh, the lakes. The sea had been beautiful, but frankly cold and drizzle do not make for a nice kind of beautiful. Starkly beautiful, deathly beautiful, coldly beautiful. The lakes were warm and still and clear. I had not expected clear with such warmth and all the trees rotting slowly away beneath us, but clear we had.
Another reason for the clarity was the overcast. On the lakes, there was none of the wind forecast for the sea, and despite its being a Sunday in August we were nearly the only activity on the lakes, even the one surrounded by little cottages.
Oo! And lest I forget, this is the day RDC and I tried the Divorce Boat, i.e., a tandem. And it went fine! RDC has always staunchly refused the idea of a tandem bike or kayak as another thing, like wallpapering, that couples should not attempt (I would say no one at all should wallpaper anything. Bleah). Perhaps it worked so well because I could just paddle like an automaton and let him steer, which policy works in general in our marriage too.
So we paddled through the lakes, from Village Lake (the cottage'd one) to Main Lake. To get from one to the next, we paddled through a creek that looked on its way to becoming portage. The water was less than a foot and, when seven people shut up and barely paddled, quiet as heaven.
Today more people swam--the Canadian boy, Phil; the Japanese man, Tatsuro; and RDC. I could have stayed in forever and ever, so warm and perfect was the water. But I didn't have goggles for a real swim and it was a kayaking, not a swimming tour. Next time, when it's just RDC and me, he can go off fishing in his float tube and I will swim and bask and read.
After lunch, Julie took the front of the tandem with me in the rear and RDC her single. I think I'm just not a good steerer. Also--and this surprised me--RDC and I struck a paddling rhythm sooner and easier than Julie and I did.
In Main Lake, there was an island with a house on it. A house on an island in a lake on an island! I wondered if there was maybe a spring on the little island to make a little tiny pond, which would have been even better. A pond on an island in a lake on an island! When Julie and I come into our money, that's the house we're going to live in. Also I wondered if, say, a Briton would be as excited as we were about that little island-lake-island thing. All I would need to live there is internet access and a dryer.
Speaking of dryers! In the evening we used the laundromat at Heriot Bay Inn, which has a campsite adjacent. Dry clothes! What a pleasure.