Lake Martin, May 4

Blue skies and low humidity beckoned us to Martin Lake a few miles from Lafayette.  Joel off loaded the kayaks from the Big House and put them on the car for our short drive.  It has been ages since I have been kayaking and I was really looking forward to a day on the water and a chance to use my new paddles.

Martin Lake is a natural body of water within a cypress-tupelo swamp known as the Cypress Island Preserve and includes a waterbird rookery area.  It's a beautiful spot with lots of bald cypress and tupelo trees, water birds and alligators.

We paddled in and out of the swamp area enjoying the cypress trees.  I was amazed at the size of the lily pads.

 We saw turtles sunning themselves.

and water plants

 The water hyacinths were in bloom

 Bald cypress trees lose their leaves in the winter and are found in slow moving lakes and streams.  Look how calm the water is.  The water is shallow in the swamp areas.

I saw this bird sunning himself on a branch. I think he was drying his wings out.  Some birds don't have oiled feathers and need to spread their wings in order to dry out.

Look at all of the Spanish moss on this bald cypress.

There are Great Blue Herons.  The rookery was closed to boating at this time.

Nice view of the lake and trees

If you look closely you can see a pair of eyes cruising along in the lily pads

And then I saw him.  Look straight off the bow.  Wow was he big!

He looked longer than my kayak.  I paddle around him giving him a wide berth.

This guy was enjoying the sun and didn't seem to bothered about me getting too close, but I was just a little concerned.  Earlier in the day something big jump out of the water next to me and gave me a start.  I could only see it out of the corner of my eye so I'm not sure it was a alligator, but it was big enough to be.  It was pretty big though!

We all had a great afternoon lazily paddling along on the shores of the lake and through the cypress.  

Swamp tours are given every day, but I think we all saw much more on our three hour paddle.

  

Tomorrow, Joel needs to get to work and put back together the Big House where he took off the wheel to get to the fuel fill line.  The fuel fill hose had a big crack in it from wear. The hose was nearly five feet long and it will be a job to get it to fit and bend around to where it needs to be. . He has found the proper hose to install, its just a matter of getting it done, and I'm sure he is tired of people asking what the problem is.