White Bear Wednesdays

It was the first official Wednesday night social paddle for the SKOAC group on White Bear lake last night. When I was about 10 minutes from the launch I got a call from RonO informing me that we would be crashing the Lion's Club senior picnic and to plan on parking 'off site'. After hauling our boats through a gauntlet of games, food stands (mmm.....mini donuts!), and folks milling aimlessly from one attraction to another, we managed to make our way to the beach. Once we launched it became the usual anarchy/ cat herding exercise. Out of the dozen or so paddlers, some wanted to go listen to the live music at Talleys, RonO and the BessemerConvivialist wanted to make sure a couple folks that are heading to Lake Superior on the intro trip this weekend are up to it, some wanted to visit the eagles nest, and others didn't know what the hell they wanted to do. BjornDahlieOfMahtomedi and the IrishPirate made a brief cameo as they headed directly to Talley's; they even missed the traditional post launch beer. Puzzling, but I'm sure the explanation will arrive via email in short order. The VOR and I joined the 'don't know what the hell we want' group which hooked up with eagles nest stragglers for a trip around Manitou Island. The eagle and some eaglets were home in the nest and and mama loon and her ungainly offspring were paddling around in the weeds. It always surprises me to see these solitary,wilderness loving birds bobbling around with the crazy watercraft that are found on White Bear in the summer. It also surprised and pleased me to see that MrEngineerGear had perfected his roll over the winter, a feat made even more impressive because he was attempting to roll the voluminous QCC craft. Video evidence is below.

Another fine evening on the water was had by all. The weather was perfect and the sunset awesome. Our one week of summer has been spectacular so far. I hope we are allowed a second one.