The Dead Lake

I set out in the dead lake with my recurring vision of exploring the little box canyons between the docks and houseboats and finding something interesting.  I don't know why I convince myself from time to time that this is possible.  It is the working boat shipyards that provide anything of interest on the dead lake.  The little bits of shoreline hold nothing much more than the remnants of the city.  The dead lake deserves the name that I have given it.

Dry Dock 9 lowered for the tug, Sam B

There is a cold wind from the south, but the cold comes from the flushing moisture carried through with the steady sprinkle that falls all day.

Calm comes, oddly enough, in the crossing under place.  With little boat traffic on such a raw day, the narrow cut is not only out of the wind, but smooth.  I stop here and watch the traffic rattle across the steel deck of the draw bridge.  It is a railroad sound - tunk...tu-tunk...  The police boat comes by.  We have passed a hundred times.  Today is the first time I can remember them waving to me.  There is a light breeze, however, as I find myself drifting in one direction and then the other.  But, it leaves me physically in no place that I already hadn't been to.

I paddle close to 3-Stars boat, which I can't see into (he lives in Mitt Romney's "safety net" - under a bridge).  I stop when I hear him cough.  We talk birds and animals for a 1/2 hour.  A large beaver from the workbench lodge had come up right up to the boat the other day while it was feeding on blackberry vines.  He reports that someone has seen a pair of golden eagles on the far side of the big lake.  He pulls out the bird book that someone gave him and we go over several wrens that he has seen nearby.

I move on when I get chilled and head for a take out in the south lagoon.