Kayaking in the Ice

December 9th (Monday)

It was the last nice day in the forecast before more rain and wind.
After a productive morning of cleaning and doing projects, we attempted to head to shore. I say attempted, because the ice was now even thicker than before. It had never really broken up the previous day, and what breakup had occurred, had simply made one piece slide under another and then they had frozen together double thick. In the areas of a single layer of ice it was about 1/4" thick.  

Jason went first, and I followed in his broken up path. The bow of his kayak would ride up onto the ice and then settle, breaking the ice as he went. The hardest part was the paddling. He had to use significant force on each attempted stroke to puncture downwards through the ice so that his paddle could be of any use. It was slow and somewhat comical progress, but we made it to shore. 

A face found carved in a tree.

“Calvert,” one of the two dogs of the caretakers, decided to spend the afternoon with us at the beach. He would wait so patiently, lying down and staring at his stick, and when one of us went to throw it for him he was so excited. It was nice to have a dog for a day :)

Jason with our friend and the dog.

In the evening, we inflated Kiki once again, and so far Kiki seems to be holding air well, but only time will tell how good the patches worked. Fingers crossed.