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To our canoeing and more-nature-loving teachers, Craig, Teresa and Silvana.
Grundy Lake Provincial Park, June 14, 1997
The songs of the sparrows woke me up. I love their songs. The sounds reminded me of the Morse code during my active ham (radio amateur) days, a high pitch, but more beautiful sound than the electronic one. The most dominant sound or "code", is the letter D in their songs, daah dit dit. These song birds of Canada always ended their songs with letter D :-), as if wanting to proclaim their Creator, Dia in Indonesian. Sometimes they put 2 Ds sometimes 3 Ds, daah dit dit, daah dit dit, daah dit dit and their tempo is a perfect D :-).
Yes, today is D-Day, a special day for me. Cecilia and I were going to do our first canoe day-trip by ourselves. By the time I have written this story, so as you can guess, we did it. If our teachers had seen the way we performed, we are sure they would have been proud :-), although they wouldn't have been proud to see how often we argued :-). The weather was so perfect! Almost no clouds in the sky. It was neither too hot nor too cold. After a filling breakfast of rice, the usual breakfast for Indonesians, we started around 9:30. As the bow paddler, I hopped first and Cecilia, the stern paddler and the steerer joined me after pushing the canoe. The wind was not too bad; there were waves but they were calm and also Grundy Lake is not too big of a lake, around 15-20 minutes paddling across. We paddled toward the left, aiming at the creek between Grundy Lake and Gut Lake. We had surveyed the creek the day before and we were confident it was passable. We were right. The water level was high enough and there was no need for either one of us to get out of the canoe (trick learned from the teachers to jerk the body a bit while pushing the canoe worked perfectly, especially on a rented canoe :-)).
Soon we reached the end of the creek toward Gut Lake, a nice, serene and small lake. We did spend time circling this lake and took some pictures. There were a pair of loons, another song bird, who were swimming together. We had to decline their invitation to do my serial essay 'Lamunan Seorang Perenang' on this lake :-). There was no time for swimming and to day-dream, no need for that in fact because this was not a dreamland anymore, but heaven on earth :-). Sea gulls (Burung Camar in Indo) soared majestically above us from time to time. Yes, we envied you who could fly so freely and you must be happy too. With almost no effort or difficulty we could see the portage sign at the end of the lake. I told Cecilia to wait for me on the shore while I surveyed how long the portage was. Yes, I've got to be a bit careful with my brand new foot :-). She said, "Go ahead, I will cast my fishing rod here, take your time." The portage was only a couple hundred meters, piece of cake for our teachers but our rented canoe was a heavy aluminium one with no yoke. Nevertheless, two hundred meters, shouldn't be a big deal and we managed. (Cecilia did the return portaging.)
As soon as we lowered our canoe onto Gurd Lake, the biggest among the three lakes, and started to paddle, our sights were caught by hundreds of water lilies. Usually we see white water lilies but today, as if even nature knew about my golden day, the colours were all yellow :-). We took about an hour paddling and circling Gurd Lake. We met only one other canoeist during the whole trip, as if we were on private lakes :-). Some more birds came into sight because lakes on Grundy Lake Park are well-known for the fishes (Cecilia caught one medium pike this evening, a nice, not too boney fish, almost the same like Tengiri in Indonesia). There were blue herons, Canada geese and ibis. Seeing ibis reminded me of pelican on the Parker ink. I loved the Parker turquoise colour ink.
After the final portaging, we took a short rest. I couldn't help thinking about the "special noodles" we ate during our last canoe day-trip with Craig and Silvana at Bon Echo Park :-) while we took a lunch break. Took some more pictures and then off we went to finish the last two lakes. We paddled on Gut Lake again where the two loons were still there. Towards the end, we were greeted by a bunch of turtles who were performing a special jump show for us :-). Back along the Nisbet Creek, we were on Grundy Lake again. A bit windy, we paddled against the current. We knew we were going to make it though. Around the bend, we could see our campsite. Yes, we made our first canoe day-trip as a couple and we are still in learning mode. "Practice makes perfect," that's what the teachers said and we believed them. However, you folks should have been there because I couldn't remember how many times I said to Cecilia, "Aduh, kamu gimana sih?", meaning "what the heck are you doing?" (in the steering job). Her answer was almost always, "Kamu terlalu kuat ngedayungnya,", meaning "you paddled too strong." Had our marriage been on rocky ground, we could have filed for divorce tomorrow :-). Perhaps a word of caution, if you are newcomers to canoeing, don't paddle on the same canoe with your husband or wife unless you are an adventurer, as we are :-).
Despite the small arguments, it was indeed a superb and wonderful experience, a special birthday present for me from our Creator. Someone said, "Canoe is the poor man's cruise ship." I agreed and felt fortunate to be poor :-). There were so many things we could see and experience in a canoe. On top of that we had a nice exercise with plenty of the happy-hormone endorphine being produced, enough to last for at least a day :-). Another important thing that we found, there were no mosquitoes nor black flies on the lakes! Why? Because they don't have canoes and could not rent one either. Seriously, there are indeed places where the pests or "pests" couldn't go. The challenge then, is to find such a place in your life. Well, have a nice reflection and until my next story of this series :-). Regards from Toronto.