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Messing Around In Boats

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I have just returned from a long, lovely weekend in Northern Minnesota at a private resort called Club Lyn, where the food, company, activities, scenery and weather were beyond excellent. A calm and beautiful lake was at our disposal, and a pair of loons posed.

June is a wonderful time to be out on just about any lake, whether you are a loon or a baboon. Or a Kangaroo. Today is Bob Keeshan’s birthday, born on June 27th in the year 1927. He was a children’s television pioneer, and also something of a boating daredevil. Look at this dangerous stunt!

Kids, I think even Captain Kangaroo would tell you, don’t go out on the lake without a lifejacket, for you AND your passenger.

What’s your favorite kind of summertime lake fun?

81 thoughts on “Messing Around In Boats”

  1. I believe tigers are the one cat that really love being in water. I suspect they are most likely like other cats in that they do not like being dressed up, so perhaps the life jacket could be discretionary for the tiger.

    We are fond of engineering projects on any sandy beach, lake, ocean or river. Castles, moats, canals, it’s all good. I think there is something very “freeing” about a project with inherent impermanence.

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    1. Not only that, but the tigers of the Sundarban area of Bangladesh drink salt water and silently swim up to pull people out of their little boats and eat them. Messin’ around in boats is a joy, but perhaps not in that region.

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        2. Steve, that’s very funny, at least for me. I will tell that joke to a child protection worker who I think will appreciate it.

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        5. I think there are some priests and at least one coach who wouldn’t completely appreciate that joke.

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  2. in it, near it, on it, i will take lake interaction any way shape or form. had a pool years ago and while the maintenance was a pain the pool was a delight.

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  3. Rise and Take a Dive Baboons!

    Oh, so many–tooling around on a pontoon boat while sitting in a lawn chair and dragging a fishing line, engineering projects, loon watching, diving from a raft, swinging from a rope into the water, picking up interesting rocks and shells. Sigh. Such a lovely thing.

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  4. captain kangaroo was a way of life. head for the basement to watch tv and there was captain mr green jeans bunny and mr moos. remember bebe the sheepdog, tom terrific and the different things you could do with a shoe box? i still cant believe anyone would ever throw away a shoe box. ping the duck, mulligans steam shovel, hats for sale. hang up those keys and stop the music so we can start the show.

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  5. Where is BSO Rafferty when he is most needed????The Captain and his pussycat are at such risk. If something happens, the keys will sink to the bottom of the lake and nobody will be able to open the treasure house; Bunny Rabbit will starve for lack of carrots; the ping pong ball market will fall due to significant decline in demand; and I will have nobody to read to me while I eat my scrambled eggs.

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    1. officer rafferty would have a snit. i am not sure how you are supposed to take care of your tiger in the boat but i a fairly certain the captain did not do it correctly. reminds me of the story of pi.

      off on my annual golf outing today noon tee off. how stupid. last year they canceled it because it was going to rain. i guess soeone thought rain would make it uncomfortable, so lets go out on a 95 degree 70% humidity day and party down. lots of liquids today.i predict a great score though, i wont be sucking down the beers in this heat, it would kill me.

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  6. Good morning. When I was a kid I really liked to swim with a snorkel tube and goggles watching the under water life. I found a place where there were big cray fish living on the bottom of the lake that I was able catch by diving to the bottom when I saw them. Fishing with my Grandfather was also one of my favorite things. He always knew places where there was good fishing. Just sitting by lake is something that I like to do these days. Canoeing is another current water activity that appeals to me.

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    1. used to go kayaking up on the brule every june. copper range camp ground just down the raod from steves former place of employment. i loved the water and the comradely. someone once said of flyfishing that it is a great excuse to go to the most beautiful places in the world. what better reason to take up an activity and make it your own.

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  7. As a former outdoor journalist, I have probably messed around water for more hours than most of you guys combined. I’ve fished blue ribbon rivers in Montana, chased steelhead in wilderness streams in Ontario, fly-fished a famous salmon river in Scotland, jigged for my supper along salt water reefs, caught bonefish on the flats near Key West and trolled for giant lake trout in Northwest Territories. The list is almost endless. Like Jim, I’ve snorkeled in clear water, especially enjoying snorkeling in the Caribbean, where I swam with an ancient sea turtle and a school of tarpon as big as a man.

    What I remember most fondly is drifting slowly in a green and white lapstrake boat in the shallows of a lake near Park Rapids, fishing for panfish with a sponge rubber fly. We used to take two-week family vacations in the 1950s. There was a huge stump-filled lily pad bay where I could spend a whole morning. Bullfrogs belching and leopard frogs trying to blend in with lily pads. Red-winged blackbirds sassing each other. Dragonflies hovering inches above the water. Painted turtles dozing in the sun. I could see about 15 feet down in that clear water so I could watch the gaily colored sunfish and bluegills chasing my fly.

    Those times now have a romantic glow in my memory. I was heartbroken, when I returned to that lake a few years ago, to find almost everything changed or gone. Even the lily pad bay is gone! All I have of that now is memories and two fuzzy slides, but at least I have wonderful memories.

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  8. I have mixed feelings about lakes. My mother never learned to swim, and whenever we went to a lake she was very verbal about her anxiety that I was going to drown if I put my toe in the water, despite my years of swimming lessons. It really takes the joy out of an activity when you have your mother’s voice in the recesses of your brain uttering fears about death. My dad couldn’t swim really, either, but went on big fishing trips to Lake of the Woods and the Missouri River in South Dakota, and never wore a life jacket (the Army Air Corps made him a swim instructor, go figure), and that only increased my mom’s anxiety. It annoys me that i have the same anxieties when my children would swim in lakes when they were younger. My husband grew up along Lake Michigan, and loves to fling himself into any body of water he encounters. He is determined to jump into Lake Superior once and only briefly on our trip to Duluth this week. I don’t think i will be on the Trail much, but i plan to give a full report on the hand bell workshop when I return.

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    1. I thought of you, Renee, when talking to folks on the Madeline Island ferry. They’d just attended a concert at some musical camp on Madeline where their son played violin. Your husband might want to try his swim off Park Point, a lovely area near Duluth. If you Google “beaches near Duluth” you will see several possibilities.

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      1. Husband thanks you for the swimming tip. I will try to hide my anxiety while he plunges. Daughter has the responsibility of staying home and caring for the critters and the house and going to her job and also practicing while we are gone.

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    2. Make sure there is an “all clear” to visit any beaches on Lake Superior, Renee. Last week, they were urging people to stay away from all beaches on the lake – due to the flood, there were all sorts of nasty things going into the lake, including sewage. It will probably be fine (or maybe already is) when you are there, but you should be aware of that.

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    3. Yeah, my parents didn’t swim and I don’t either, so we were all a little nervous about water. Then I learned about flukes, flatworms, amoebas and roundworms, and lost my desire to ever do anything involving bodies of water except gaze at them from a shady patio with a drink in hand (alcohol is antibacterial, after all!).

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  9. There are so many things to do with a lake – it’s almost as good as TV! A personal favorite is to drift around off the end of the dock on an air mattress while my family prepares the food. Then going back out for more of the same while they clean up.

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    1. I understand houseguests can fulfill the same functions as family members, and can also be summoned to bring you a shandy when one is required.

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        3. Aw, shucks, Steve, that’s nice. My summer plans have been more or less smashed to smithereens, and I don’t know if I can wangle a trip to your cabin, but I’m sure it would be a good substitute for my sister’s house on the St. Louis River (which will probably not be habitable anytime soon). And while my previous comment may have come across as cynical, I hope you realize it was all in good fun.

          P.S. I’m not a bad cook either.

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      3. And don’t forget the whole durn bunch of yous invite to my family’s lake cabin July 21 weekend. Don’t worry about meals – I’ve already delegated that to Linda.

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  10. I grew up on Cannon Lake about six miles southwest of Faribault. It’s part of the Cannon River chain of lakes and is really a reservoir due to the presence of the historic King Mill Dam at Faribault. There were few year-round homes there when I was a child. My brothers and I wandered freely along the entire northwest shore of the lake, passing empty summer cabins. They have been built up into permanent year-round homes now and the entire place has changed.

    By the time I was four it was impossible for my mom to keep me out of the lake and I remember long summers wearing a huge, orange, puffy, musty-smelling life jacket from morning until dusk. We waded and swam, captured frogs, found clam shells and rocks, built forts on the shore of the lake, examined dead fish on the beach and floated on inner tubes. A friend and I swam across the lake when we were thirteen. It’s a little less than a mile from west to east. Then we swam back. I was a senior lifeguard by the time I was fourteen and became the lifeguard for the senior high pool. (I guarded for practice of the boys’ swim team. I was not allowed on the team.)

    We also had a large raft anchored about 50 yards from shore. The raft floated on nine empty 55-gallon steel barrels and was anchored with a log chain to a submerged, concrete-filled, antique cook stove that was sunk about ten feet below the surface of the water. The raft was painted with white lead paint that peeled every year. Our wet bodies were covered with flakes of white lead paint. We practiced diving, cannonballs and flips. We swam around and beneath the raft, hiding from one another among the floating barrels. One evening, my friends and I filled our duck boat with sleeping bags, pillows and boxes of potato chips. We rowed out to the raft and slept there all night, the raft rocking gently on the summer waves. One August night we counted meteor showers. I remember counting 23 or so before drifting off to sleep beneath the stars.

    Lakes are a magnet for me. I’m drawn to the shore like a bee to nectar.

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  13. Morning…

    Been trying to organize my thoughts about this.
    Dad was afraid of water, Mom made me take swimming lessons. We never had a boat and didn’t know anyone that had one. But we had creeks. And stock tanks and milk house sinks full of water and washing out the old bulk milk tank with a long handled brush. So I had lots of opportunities to play in the water and get wet. And I took advantage of all of them. Mom was always asking me why I was so wet.
    And creeks; the little stream below the barn had crayfish. I fished a lot in the bigger creek, Silver Creek. Caught nothing but suckers… would take them home and put them in the stock tank. They survived until Dad drained the tank to clean it and wouldn’t find the fish until it had laid in the manure for about 5 minutes… and I’d go fishing again.
    Spent an afternoon with a neighbor playing in the creek by Oxbow park. That night I hurt my leg in the silage auger and that was it for my summer of playing in the water…
    Swimming lessons went OK until I jumped in the water and hit my head on the bottom of the pool. And once someone pushed me in the deep end and I couldn’t swim that well. Panic ensued as I flailed around. I can’t remember if someone rescued me or I managed to get to the edge and they pulled me out.
    Daughter loves to be in a pool. She’s had enough lessons that she’s OK in the shallow water… not good in deep yet but we’re still working on that. It’s a big step from where she hated getting her head wet. She goes to a day camp that goes swimming everyday. She’s been going there for a couple summers now and it’s been those kids that have gotten her hooked on swimming. She’s even done the slide and used a diving board a few times. (as long as the teachers are there to help in the water).

    Ah summer….

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  14. Well, no riverfront for me today. Took the bike trail down to Crosby Farm Park-really very lovely, although the fact that it was pretty much downhill all the way gave me pause-path to the riverfront is closed, river is just too high. Maybe tomorrow morning, I’ll take the route downtown-not a sandy beach type river front, but pleasant place to read, knit and have breakfast in any case.

    For the record, I got home by way of pushing the bike up the big hill by the marina-I am sooo embarassingly out of shape, but I keep thinking of Crow Girl and “the only way out is through”. Got to get on a ride every day if I ever want to get back to where I was fitness-wise.

    Clyde, I am loving biking, Even with those hills that I epically fail, it is quite the thrill to make those miles under my own power.

    Hot day means I should spend it in the nice cool basement, I guess……

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    2. Way to go MIG. Son got a new bike that fits his tall frame and we’ve fixed up the other bike. I ride it over to the shed in the mornings; about 100′. Then down to the barn and back to the house at night. About 600′. It’s a start, eh?

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      1. any start is a good start. I keep waiting for the morning when I wake up and am too stiff and sore to even think about hopping on the bike, but so far, so good.

        I am awfully sleepy these days though……

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        1. I feel that way every morning. Seriously I mean that. I have felt too stiff to ride almost every morning for about five years. But I just get on the bike and ride and it subsides. But my pain is the fm issues not stiffness from riding so much. But the current word from people who study this is that those over forty should ease in gradually. If you really are very stiff in the morning, you probably are pushing it too hard, assuming you do not have an fm or RA issue, both of which I have. This is the word from my son’s trainer and a couple of articles I have read.
          I currently do two rides each day I ride. One about 10-14 and one about 6-10. I end up at about 120-135 a week. But I built up to that.
          I use tracking my miles to motivate me.

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    3. That’s encouraging, mig, glad you told us about walking it uphill – inspiration to do the same.

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  15. And Happy Birthday Captain Kangaroo! I know I watched it but I don’t remember the specifics… I kind of remember Mr. Greenjeans… and maybe the ping pong balls…

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  16. Skipping rocks.

    Eating Dark Chocolate Ice Cream from Portland Malt Shop in Duluth while sitting on the rocks by the Lake.

    Not a lake, but it’s water: hiking up & down creeks that flow into the lake.

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    1. Darn! I just came back from the store. Cooking supper for daughter and family with newly pierced grand daughter. There at the checkout was a bar of dark chocolate, which your post made me buy. Edit made me do it.

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  17. Morning all… missed you the last few days while I worked on a project that was boring beyond belief. I was really afraid that if I got onto the trail I would be too easily distracted. Yesterday was great – couldn’t help but add a couple of comments!

    I grew up land-locked in St. Louis but was able to escape every summer and winter vacation to the Northwoods and the various extended-family cabins on the Upper Eau Claire. I learned to love the lakes and the nice summer temperatures and the snow as well; in fact, these are the three main reasons that I moved to Minnesota after school.

    I have a blow-up canoe for two. This is my preferred way to be on the lakes, but paddle boats are nice too. I prefer quiet boats to things with engines. I’m also quite fond of lounging on an inner tube or platform.

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    2. All of these dance forms require choreography and learning specific steps, all of which I completely reject in favor of truly free-style, from my core moving to the music. When I was on a cruise in February, they taught a class in how to do the dance from Jackson’s Thriller. I utterly bombed and slunk off the stage in humiliation. I can’t help but wonder how many deny themselves the joy of dancing because they, like me, just can’t follow the prescribed steps?

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  21. Water good. I grew up near Lake Harriet in S Mpls and Mom was a life guard in her youth, so swimming lessons came early. These days if I’m at a lake I prefer wading to actual swimming, but most anything that allows me to dip my toes in the water is good: sit on a dock and read, stand in the water and just watch the activity around me, float on my back and stare at the clouds…I’m not picky, I’ll take a pool just as well as a lake or even a kiddie splash pool and fountains. We have a small pool in the back yard for Daughter (one of those above-ground 10′ wide, about 3′ deep numbers good for splashing and not much else) – just right for those times when going somewhere seems like too much work, but being in water is just what you need on a hot summer day.

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  22. There’s warm water and there’s cold water. (Several of us have expanded the “lake” question to “water”…)

    Warm: This is the water that you get in and stay in, and can splash around in for hours if your mom will let you. First half of childhood in Storm Lake, IA, gave me memories of lake swimming at Sunset Beach (w/ lifeguard), fishing with Grandpa, and watching fireworks over the lake (and of course skating in winter). My high school best friend’s family had a nice funky little cabin on Clear Lake, IA, where I got to spend some quality time learning to water ski, sail a little, and play all those fun games under the dock as Krista was describing. A vacation in Hawaii introduced us to snorkeling, which we loved. Then came summer weekends at Sweet Lake, WI, with Husband’s family that included kayaking, wine on the pontoon at sunset, water volleyball in the shallows, and lying on the dock at night looking at all those stars.

    Cold: This is the water that you gingerly test with your toe and say, “NO, the whole body is not doing that.” These waters are found in the rushing Big Thompson River canyon near Estes Park, CO, and in the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco. (Southern California is different, I’ve heard, but can’t give my own experience.) I did go into Half Moon Bay in a wetsuit.

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    1. Barb, I also subdivide water into salt water and fresh water. I grew up near salt water, and I was not a happy camper when we moved to Lyngby and had to contend with fresh water in nearby Furresøen. It tasted and smelled different and took some getting used to. We had the option of biking to Bellevue Strand just north of Copenhagen, featuring the salt water of Øresund, but it was a longer bikeride, and the beach was colloquially known as “the fly paper.” Gives you some idea of how crowded it was. To me it was more of a beach for sunning and be seen, and if you didn’t have anything to show off, why bother?

      The first time in my life that I was away from an ocean for any length of time was when I was in Basel. I lived one block from the Rhine, and I’d walk down to river in the evening and sit there looking forlornly at that, to my mind, pitiful body of water flowing by. It’s charm was completely lost to me. It didn’t sound right, it didn’t smell right, and it didn’t look right. You can imagine how I felt when I moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming a few years later.

      Now that I live near the Mississippi and other rivers, I’ve come to appreciate them for what they are. And certainly, in the state of 10,000 lakes, I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty of the lakes. But, once in a while we make the trek to Lake Superior solely for the pleasure of beholding a body of water so large it looks like an ocean even if it doesn’t smell right.

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      1. Yes, Lake Superior is its own category – I’ve been in it when it’s almost as cold as the ocean, and then in August when it’s almost warm. 🙂

        How long were you in Cheyenne, PJ?

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  23. I’m fortunate enough to live 75′ from water, yet I could count on two hands the number of times that I’ve actually been IN it in the last 12 years. Mostly, I just watch it and drink in the lake breeze.

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  26. Lying in the calm waters of Big Cormorant Lake on the south shore where it is sandy bottom….I lie on my water noodle and gaze at the sky above and enjoy the lap- lap- lap of the waves on the beach.
    It is the only UNDEVELOPED PLACE on the whole big lake! Thank you Duane and Mary for not selling your farmland!!!!
    Also riding in our 16 ft fishing boat at a putt putt speed and looking at the shore…where big homes are built and I think about my Uncle Carl’s little cottage in the 1940s when there were no luxury homes on lake shores and nobody cut down the trees between the cottaqge and the lake and nobody tried to make a “town lawn” at the lake shore…..cutting down trees , planting Kentucky bluegrass lawn and FERTILIZING the D—- thing with chemical fertilizizer which has turned the clear waters of too many lakes brown and murky. BAH HUMBUG! But I still lvoe to float on my water noodle and pretend those things have not happened!!!!

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