Ragged Island Hike

The boys and I took the boat over to Ragged Island on Lake Winnipesaukee to search for a geocache there.  We were really glad we went for two reasons.

First, we arrived there and found out it is one of the properties owned and managed by the Lakes Region Conservation Trust (LRCT).  There are very nice, well-maintained boat docks at the south end of the island.  There's a welcome kiosk with information about the history of the island.  The best part though was the laminated nature guide you could borrow from the kiosk as you walked the island.  There is a half-mile loop trail around the island with a dozen posts where you stop and read that section of the nature guide, and it explains to you what trees or plants you can see or what types of animals you are likely to encounter around the island.  It was very well done.

Boat Docks at south end of Ragged Island

Welcome Kiosk

Nature Guide

The trail is well-defined hard-pack dirt covered in pine needles.

YB on the Ragged Island shoreline

This used to be the governor of NH's cottage back in the mid-1800s.

Second, the geocache on Ragged Island was AWESOME.  It tied with a geocache in Hawaii for our favorite geocache.  It required a good amount of teamwork between me and the boys.  I never would  have found it without them.

I picked up the nature guide and just followed the guide figuring we would eventually find the geocache as we followed the nature walk.  As it turns out, the nature walk takes you on a clockwise circuit of the island, and the geocache takes you on a counter-clockwise circuit of the island.  We finished the first clockwise loop of the island doing the nature walk and started the geocache hunt going back in the counter-clockwise direction.  Then my wonderful wife called my cell to say there was a thunderstorm coming on the weather radar, so the boys and I got back in the boat and went home for the day.  My eldest son and I returned a few days later in order to finish the geocache, and it basically required a complete loop of the island in the opposite direction as the nature walk.

But that's OKAY because we had a great time BOTH times walking Ragged Island.

Sorry no pics or GPS track for this hike, but I don't want to spoil the hunt for anyone else going to search for the Ragged Island geocache.  Suffice to say, it was awesome and I highly recommend it.  My eldest really enjoyed it, too.  However, I recommend doing the nature guide walk in reverse order so you can do both the nature walk and the geocache at the same time.

Paddle Log #20: Squam Lake with LRCT

In the search for kid-friendly hikes in the Lakes Region of NH, I browsed my way onto the Lakes Region Conservation Trust (LRCT) website.  While there, I happened to notice they were offering a guided paddle excursion on Squam Lake to the Butterworth Preserve on Saturday, 21 August.

I like going paddling with groups on the principle of safety in numbers, especially when it is someplace I haven't been paddling before.  I also like having a guide to lead us and tell us about the area and what we're looking at.  The date of this LRCT guided paddle just happened to line up nicely with our family vacation.

Early morning sun = long shadows.

I dragged the boys out of bed at the crack of dawn.  They willingly got dressed in return for the promise of Dunkin Donuts for breakfast on our way to Squam Lake.

It was COLD when we left the house.  It's been a LONG time since I saw 50F on a thermometer!

Thankfully, the sun was out and warmed things up quickly.  It warmed up to around 75F by the time we got out.  Plus, the water temperature was really nice.

We met up at a small public access point along a private road in the northwest side of Squam Lake.  The event organizer from LRCT laid out maps of the area and explained what properties are owned by the Trust and where we would be paddling.

This was 9 year old ES's third time using his Perception Acadia Scout kayak, and he did really well.

Right where we put in the water were some beautiful white water lily flowers.

The waterproof doodle pad was a big hit with both boys today.  Here my youngest son YB (6 years old) drew lily pads and flowers.

YB liked poking the lily pads as we smoothly glided through the water.

The Butterworth Preserve is accessible only by boat because it is surrounded by private property on the landward side.  However, there is a LRCT welcome kiosk with information about the preserve, and there is a well-marked walking trail to follow a loop around the preserve.

Ribbit!
Frog on the shore of the Butterworth Preserve

From the Butterworth Preserve, we paddled across Rattlesnake Cove and clockwise (south/southwest) around the Five Fingers peninsula at the base of East Rattlesnake Mountain.  We ended up stopping at a beach in the Five Fingers to stretch our legs and have a snack.

Pit Stop

Stretching our legs on a beach in the Five Fingers peninsula.

Croak!

 Toad on the shore in the Five Fingers area.

The boys took turns alternating between using the camera and using the waterproof doodle pad.  From the time that my eldest had the camera, I have lots of pictures of my back and the tow line between our two kayaks, plus some pretty nice self-portraits.

My Eldest Son's perspective

Like Father Like Son

Meanwhile, back in our boat, my youngest drew this picture of our adventure.  It's a kayaker with both ends of his paddle int he water.  Then he drew the sun and clouds in the sky.  Then he drew the trees on either side and birds sitting on the branches of the trees.

During the times that my youngest had the camera, I ended up with dozens of photos of the underside of the boat and the camera's floating strap dangling in the water.  

He also tried his own variation of the self-portrait.  He kept trying to hold the camera underwater and take a picture of himself up in the boat.

We saw one family of mergansers and a handful of pretty white birds diving into the water.  I think the diving birds might have been terns, but I couldn't tell from a distance.  

Toward the end of our trip, we passed a sign that gave me some hope we might see a loon.  

Sure enough, this majestic loon came paddling right by two of the kayaks in our group and kept diving below the surface. He didn't stay on the surface for very long, so I kept my camera pointed toward where I thought he might pop up in hopes of capturing a good picture.  He kept popping up in drastically different locations from what I expected though.

Here's the loon in between dives.  I was surprised how big he was.  I always thought they were probably about the same size as a duck.  You don't get the sense of it from this picture, but he seemed about twice as big as a mallard duck - more like the size of a goose or a swan.


Many thanks and kudos to Kristen from the Lakes Region Conservation Trust for organizing and leading us on this wonderful day on the water!  I am so glad the boys agreed to go with me on this trip.  After we got out of the water and were loading up the car, the boys made my day when, without prompting, they both told me that the had fun.

Stats for the paddle log:  (Note: The stats on Garmin Connect are inaccurate because I forgot to click "stop" on my Forerunner.  The Garmin Connect data includes the first stretch of road we drove in the car until my Forerunner beeped at me to tell me we had finished another mile.  Doh!  Quick!  Turn it off!)

• Date: 21 August 2010
• Time In: 8:39 a.m.
  
• Time Out: 12:17 p.m.
  
• Elapsed:  3 hours 38 minutes
• Moving Time (GPS):  3 hrs 5 minutes 
• Stopped Time (GPS):  33 minutes
• Mileage: 5.1 miles by GPS
  
• Sea State: 0
• Winds: Negligible
• Air Temp:  50F warming up to 75F
• Water Temp: 75.8F digital
• Current:  None.
• Gauge Height:  Lake level is about a foot or two below normal.
• Avg Speed (GPS):  1.7 mph
  
• Max Speed by (GPS):  4.1 mph
• Rapids?  None. 
• Hazards?  None.
  
• Kit: Ocean Kayak Malibu Two XL. Flop hat, NRS paddling gloves, short sleeve shirt, swim trunks, Keen sandals.  Because it was initially so cold in the morning, I brought my Kokotat jacket & NRS pants, and I brought the boys' rain pants and windbreakers, but we didn't end up needing them.
• Configuration: 6 year old YB rode in the front seat and I rode in the middle seat of our Ocean Kayak Malibu Two XL.  9 year old ES rode in his own Perception Acadia Scout.
• Route:  Put-in from a public access point along a private road in the northwest end of Squam Lake.  [Note: If you are reading this in Google Reader, then you will not see the Garmin Connect map here for some reason.  You actually have to come to my blog to see the map of where we went from the GPS.]   

• Other comments (such as wildlife spotted): Mergansers, loon, frog, toad, diving birds (terns?).

Similar to when we finished our West Rattlesnake Mountain hike, we got in the car and I did a search in our car navigation system for the nearest restaurant.  Again, Walter's Basin in Holderness was still the closest.  However, Holderness wasn't exactly on the way back to home, so we started driving back toward Moultonborough and searching for something else.

We ended up stopping at the Corner House Inn in Sandwich, NH.  It seemed kinda fancy for us in swim trunks and t-shirts, but they had a pub upstairs and said we were welcome to have lunch there.  Lunch was AWESOME.  I just like saying, "I had an awesome sandwich in Sandwich."

Paddle Log #12: Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

On Friday of Spring Break, the boys and I got up at the crack of dawn and headed to the Florida space coast to go kayaking.

It was the first time I had seen the sunrise in seven days.
(Since the last time I went to work the previous Friday.)

Before we went to Florida, I googled kayak rentals and guided tours for Florida and came up with several listings. It's hard to tell if one is better than another, so I started searching other websites like BBB and Yelp for reviews.

I found that this group, A Day Away Kayak Tours, had one positive review on Yelp (not a lot of data, but it's better than nothing), a good rating on BBB, and a good website. I called them once for information and another time to reserve the trip, and both times I was very pleased with how friendly and informative it was speaking with them on the phone.

Their website is well laid out and very informative. I really like how they have basic stats for each trip they offer: length of time, comfort level, difficulty level, recommended gear to bring, etc. The photos of kids on the trip help reinforce that it's doable with small children, too.

My boys (8 and 6 years old) and I went on the Merritt Island Tour / Manatee Tour. Note there are two listings for those tours on their website, but it's the same tour. They just call it the Manatee Tour in the spring and summer when the Manatees are around, but both tours go to the same place in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

I seriously considered taking our kayak with us to Florida. I decided against it because:

• As a general rule, I don't want to go kayaking alone (just me and the boys) in a new place with which I am not familiar, so we planned to pay for a guided tour anyway.
• ADAKT said they had a couple of nice kayaks that would fit all three of us.
• It would've saved us a few bucks to have our own kayak instead of using theirs, but I think we would have made up for that in gas mileage from having the kayak on top of the car for the drive down.
• Since ADAKT had the kayaks that would fit the three of us, it was a lot less hassle this way. We just showed up and they already had the kayaks on the beach ready for us to hop in and go. Likewise, when we got back, it was easy for us to hop in the car and leave without having to load-up the kayak on our car.

Thumbs-up / Kudos to the ADAKT staff for their advice with regard to directions. They specifically warned me DO NOT FOLLOW YOUR GPS DIRECTIONS, follow the directions they send you in your reservation confirmation email. They were absolutely right. My GPS wanted me to go all sorts of bass-ackwards directions that would've taken me FAR FAR away from where I wanted to be. The directions they provide are simple and easy to follow and get you directly there.

The tour was scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m., and they recommended leaving at least an hour and a half early from Orlando to beat the traffic. Just to be safe, we left our resort near Sea World in Orlando at 7:30 a.m. We got to Titusville way early, but that's okay. I had just thrown the boys in the car in their PJs, so we stopped at McDs in Titusville to change into swim trunks and swim shirts and get some coffee. We also stopped at the Walgreens to burn some time, then got in the car to head on over.

We WOULD have been right on time...

Except there's a draw bridge...

And it was OPEN...

So we had to wait...

And we were a little late.


Even so, the tour guides weren't overly annoyed with us.


When we arrived, the kayaks were all on the beach ready to hop-in and go, and tour guide Elisabeth was giving some basic paddling instruction to the group. She didn't wait for us because she knew we owned our own kayak and this wasn't our first time paddling.


We rode in a nice RTM kayak with two hard plastic seats and a jumpseat-cushion for my youngest son in the middle. Back when we were shopping for our own kayak, I shied away from the kayaks with plastic seats like that thinking they would be hard and uncomfortable. On the contrary, they were very comfortable and we didn't have any problems in the two hours or so of paddling we did.

We had a great time. The boys loved it. We saw several dolphins, one alligator, lots of pelicans and other birds, and Florida striped tulip conch snails.

SQUIRREL?!?! DOLPHIN?!?!

It's a challenge to get a good photo of the dolphins because they pop up and go back down again so quickly, so you can't really zoom in and capture them in time. Even so, we thought it was really cool seeing so many dolphins so close by.

There were about 12 kayaks or so in our group, most with 2 people in the kayak except for ours with 3 and the three tour guides riding solo. The lead tour guide, Elisabeth, rode at the front. Tour guide Travis rode at the back making sure we didn't leave anyone behind. Tour guide Kristi rode in the middle and was very helpful in pointing things out to my boys.


We paddled in around a boat basin looking for manatees, but we didn't find any. Our tour guide said it had been an unusually cold winter and it was still early in the season for seeing manatees.

We DID see the eyes and snout of one gator close to shore. Our tour guide said there was nothing to worry about, the gator wouldn't come near us and the only time we would encounter an aggressive gator was during nesting season.

(Pregnant pause)

One of our fellow paddlers who also had never been in the same body of water in close proximity to a live alligator asked, "So when's nesting season?"

Our tour guide thought for a moment and answered, "Oh... right about now actually."

Cue Finding Nemo sound bite of Bruce the Shark:

SWIM-A-WAAAAAAY!
[back-paddle, back-paddle, back-paddle]

No, in all seriousness, I felt completely safe. We did see the gator move a little, so we knew it was alive, but it didn't move toward us at all. I didn't get a very good photo of it, but I wasn't planning on going any closer for a photo.


We paddled underneath that draw bridge that delayed our arrival and out to the end of the canal. Then we got out to stretch our legs and walk around a bit.

YB shuffling his feet to scare away stingrays.

This is becoming a tradition of sorts for our family vacations, except my wife stayed back at the resort to relax, so we're missing her feet in this picture. In case you didn't know, Crocs are great for kayaking. I'm still loving my Keen Newport sandals.

Wait, what's that?

Closer up underwater shot

We saw several of these Florida banded tulip conchs.

It's a type of sea snail. If you pick one of these little shells up, something similar to a cow-tongue comes out of the shell and with the strength of an Arnold Schwarzenegger bicep pushes itself out of your fingers so it falls back in the water. It looked about twice as large as the shell itself and I was amazed how strong it was. It doesn't take long to figure out just how to hold them so the snail can't reach you to push out of your fingers though.

YB didn't want to hold it.

Neither did ES.
(I love his facial expression here.)

I was very pleased with our experience with A Day Away Kayak Tours, and I would recommend them to friends. The boys both said they had a good time, too and even agreed to having their photo taken with me by the ADAKT sign.

Some stats for the paddle log:

• Date: 2 April 2010
• Time In: 10:00 a.m. (approx)
  
• Time Out: 12:00 p.m. (approx)
  
• Elapsed: 2 hours
• Mileage: 3.0 miles by Buckeye Outdoors route planner
  
• Sea State: 0
• Winds: 0
• Air Temp: ~85F
• Water Temp: Bathtub
• Current: None
• Kit: RTM rental kayak and simple rental paddle. Flop hat & sunglasses. Forgot gloves. Forgot to put sun screen on arms. Short sleeve swim shirt, swim trunks, Keen Newport water sandals.
• Configuration: I sat in the back seat, ES in the front, YB in the middle.
• Route: See Garmin Connect. I forgot to push "start" when we got in the water, but our entry point is the same place as where we got out at the "stop" icon.
  
• Other comments (such as wildlife spotted): Several dolphins, one alligator, lots of pelicans and other birds, Florida banded tulip conchs.
  

P.S. LUNCH

On our way back, we stopped at Dixie Crossroads in Titusville for lunch. That place is awesome!

2 Dozen Rock Shrimp & Corn Fritters covered in powdered sugar

I don't want to make this blog post any longer, but if you've got a moment, I recommend reading my Yelp review of Dixie Crossroads. It could be a blog post in and of itself. (I uploaded several photos there, too.)