Dusting Off The Canoe

We had an incredible day yesterday. The best part of the day was going for our first canoe ride of the season. I'm sure this has to be the latest start to the canoeing season yet. We were only gone for a couple of hours but we saw so much.

We put the canoe in at the locks. There was a large drop to get into the boat. Emily was very upset about this but after a while she was great. We saw so many things. The first thing was a huge number of pike just below the surface. It was amazing to see how many there were and how close they were. As they turned away from the canoe some of the fish would break the surface, which was very exciting. We even had some pike that would stay right beside us and follow us. Very cool to watch.

In addition to fish, we saw a ton of turtles and two great blue herons.

Probably the most exciting part of the trip for Liam was seeing a float plane up close. We didn't hear it land because we were upwind. We had been watching some large boats go by and began paddling back to the locks. We were out of the main channel and were giving a blue heron a wide birth so as not to scare it. I turned around and saw a float plane following us. It wasn't too far back, the channel wasn't very wide and I wasn't entirely sure the pilot could see us. Sarah steered us closer to shore. Given the option of scarring a bird or getting run over by a plane I'm guessing you can guess which option we chose. The plane proceeded past us, coming within 30 feet, and then docked. Liam was so excited.

Unfortunately we didn't bring a camera with us so we didn't get any pictures. To be honest I wasn't convinced that we weren't going to end up in the drink. Having said that, both Liam and Emily were fantastic in the canoe. They were happy to just sit and watch the scenery. 

Here's to a summer full canoeing experiences.