It’s possible to combine paddling and shopping

Are you shopping for real estate but you don’t want to give up your weekend exercise routine? Why not combine the two and satisfy your need to get out and your curiosity at the same time.

I’m not in the market, by the way, but I have a friend who’s looking casually (although knowing that he’s made spur-of-the-moment decisions in the past it wouldn’t surprise me if he announced tomorrow he’s gone and bought a lake side villa).

Fellow paddler Robert Causey and I have been on several outings wherein gawking at some form of land or buildings and speculating on their value has been central.

I should have assumed that might be the case last Saturday when he called looking to do some paddling on a local body of water – say Pushaw Lake – for the afternoon. We settled on a rendezvous time of 2 p.m. at Gould’s Landing where much of the Free World had already descended.

We’d head north along the easterly shore and see where our efforts would take us. Causey had a general idea of where that would be since his former landlady had told him there was a camp or house for sale on the Old Town shore.

Besides, if we stayed to the east behind the islands we’d avoid the annoying buzzing of personal watercraft. There would be various opportunities as well to duck out of the north wind for a respite. Off we went at a leisurely pace. The wind was in our faces, maybe 10-15 mph and the temperature was around 80 degrees.

Sure enough Dollar and Hardwood islands provided a break from the headwinds, but out of the breeze it was uncomfortably warmer. We headed for the Old Town shore and proceeded northward. It being Saturday, many of the camp and homeowners were outside and gave us a friendly greeting as we passed. I was resigned to the belief that this would not be a nature cruise (but I did get a chance to watch a bank beaver swim through a shallow area and later a good-sized immature eagle flew overhead).

I couldn’t help but think that living lakeside must have its shortcomings, what with all these boats passing by and their occupants waving. Causey later volunteered the same thought and then reasoned that it probably wasn’t a big problem since most everybody on the water was flying by at break-neck speed. It would be a major feat to pry one’s white-knuckled grip free of the handlebars and wave, we guessed.

South of Old Town Landing we came across two places for sale. From the water we got a great idea of the view and neighboring properties – and whether the mosquitoes are bothersome. (One of the places for sale was being guarded by a sleeping lady on the upper deck, so I assumed mosquitoes were not a problem, at least on a breezy Saturday in August.)

North past the Twin Islands water traffic was at its busiest, with couple of boats pulling water skiers, a pontoon boat and various personal watercraft. We hugged the shore for safety. Just shy of the Pushaw Stream outlet we decided it was time to head south. We’d covered about 6.5 miles and it was around 4:45 p.m. Our plan was to be back around 6 p.m.

Wind and waves at our backs, it would be a fun ride home. I was paddling my Current Designs Sirocco that loves a small following sea. I’d paddle up behind a wave, punch through it and ride on two, sometimes three more. I felt like I was flying.

And I guess I was. After 20 minutes or so I stopped to turn around to see if Causey was still on my stern and he was back a couple of hundred yards.

This cat-and mouse continued all the way back to Gould’s Landing where I pulled up on the beach at 5:45 p.m. I later figured the return mileage at 5.4 miles, which is a pretty good clip – 5.4 miles in an hour.

Causey pulled up a little later saying he was a tad tired. I guess he spent a lot of energy fighting the tendency of his boat to broach since it has no skeg or rudder. My boat’s skeg kept me going pretty much in a straight line. There was some minor tendency to broach due mostly to irregular waves from boat wakes. But all in all it was a fantastic ride. I found myself wishing for a stronger wind and some slightly larger waves.

Such was not the case Wednesday evening, however, when Causey called to see if I wanted to work off the day’s frustrations and meet him for a paddle back at Pushaw Lake.

As usual, I was late getting away from my desk. I stopped by my house to change into paddling wear, grabbed a Nalgene of water and hit the road (forgetting my cellular phone and neglecting to leave a note for my wife to tell her I was on the water…).

Causey had told me that he’d paddle around Dollar and Hardwood islands so if and when I got on the water I could find him in that neighborhood. I launched from Gould’s Landing and made a bee line for the eastern side of Dollar. Sure enough I caught the glint of his paddles between the islands as I rounded the southern end of the island.

The pink sun was settling down behind puffy gray clouds as we turned eastward for Moose Island. We took the time to explore the marshy eastern shore before crossing to the Old Town shore to check out a new structure at Pushaw Lake Campground I’ve been able to see from across the lake. Turns out it’s the campground store, according to one of the campers we chatted with in the dusk as we floated just off shore.

We took our time heading back home on the last 1.5-mile leg in the dark, swapping stories and telling jokes. At the landing we loaded up quickly trying not to feed the hoard of flying critters that enveloped us.

The four-mile paddle was just the ticket for washing away the day’s lunacy.

I found a great little glasses strap the other day pinned to a bulletin board in the newsroom. It was sent to one of our reporters who didn’t want it. Never one to shy from a bargain, I grabbed it and set about trying to figure it out.

See, it’s not your typical glasses retainer-type strap. Oh, it has the capability of being just that, but there’s so much more! Thanks to a middle section, this Technoskin 3 in 1 System will act as a cloth case in which you may store your glasses and the micro-fiber cloth also acts as a cleaner. If you hang around salt water, you know you’re always looking for something to wipe away that salt film. And if you have clip-ons like I do, you know you’re always looking for someplace to put them when you take them off your glasses. My problems are solved.

Jeff Strout can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.