Northern Patience...

On Sunday, rather than lie abed with my newly acquired head cold, I went for a car ride with my wife, who was participating in the 'Great Backyard Bird Count'. She had been out earlier on the weekend with some friends and seen some rare and interesting ducks and to my mind, where there are ducks, there is open water and a paddling opportunity! I had to check for possible paddling leads, sick or not.

Unfortunately, while there were plenty of ducks, mergansers, both common and hooded, some mallards and even some browsing deer, for me there was also the dreaded and ubiquitous shore ice, a slippery shelf of thin ice seen here in the photo, reaching out from both shores towards the lovely liquid stuff in the middle. What makes this ice so nasty is that it's so easy to slide your boat across it from the shore, sliding out to the water like a seal on it's belly. The return trip is where things turn sour. The thin wet ice is nearly impossible to clamber back over and regaining the shore is more a matter of good luck than skill, even for those equipped with ice picks to pull themselves along.

We drove the length of the open water section, she admiring the fowl, I becoming more foul until the idea of returning home for hot drinks laced with something soothing seemed like a most welcoming suggestion. Patience, my northern friends...