New Clear Days
Published August 8, 2005 | 
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done.
Two suns in the sunset. . .
Could be the human race is run – waters
It’s not often I get to paddle next to a nuclear power plant. Let alone two of them. And in a strange coincidence, on the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that’s just what we did. It’s certainly odd that after noting this anniversary in my journal that my very next post would again go nuclear. Very strange.
On Saturday morning we left Baraboo for a weekend in Two Rivers. This trip gives me time to play on the lake while Mary and Gryphon play on the beach. Because of the build up of slime at our normal campsite we ended up staying at the Village Inn just outside of Two Rivers. It’s worth mentioning the Village Inn since it’s fairly nice for the prices they charge, especially given that the other larger hotel in town charges over $100 a night! There really are very limited lodging choices in Two Rivers when you can’t camp out on the beach or at the state park.
Sunday morning I met Chris Mau from Green Bay & John Browning from Milwaukee and we headed up to Point Beach State Park for a day trip to Two Creeks. If you’re every up that way it’s worth noting that to launch from Point Beach State Park the best location is at the Lighthouse Beach parking lot. This is the shortest carry from the car to the water.
After waiting for me to run back to the motel to get my forgotten spay skirt we launched out under the shadow of the Rowley Point Light house into a glassy blue lake Michigan. We headed north along the coast for some time glad for the cool air radiating through our cockpits as the day warmed up. The water was in the low 60s and yet felt almost numbing to the touch. A few miles north of the state park we came across a big chunk of metal rising out of the water. Our best guess was that it is a pump of some kind, but how it came to be there is still a mystery to us. This is something I will need to research. Later a local resident along the beach told us it was the wreck of a ship called “Enterprise”. Possibly, yet I did not see the tell-tale “NCC-1701″ painted on the side. Nor did we see any additional signs of a wreck other than this one large bit of machinery.
From there we followed the coast around slightly to the west and passed the first of two local Nuclear power Plants to land at a small landing in Two Creeks. Two Creeks sits right between the Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant and the Kewaunee Power Plant to the north. However they also have the only public boat landing between the state park and the village of Kewaunee. Sometimes a pit toilet is worth picking up a little green glow.
One point we try to make as instructors to is how fast things can change on the water. This is a good case in point. While we were on the beach the wind suddenly picked up from the south to a pretty solid 10-12 mph building up nice local wave action. With experience, clear blue skies, and VHF weather access we felt quite safe to launch out into these conditions to paddle the 7 miles back to Point Beach. For experienced kayakers the waves of 1 to 2 feet and a bit of gusty wind are more fun than anything although it can make distance paddling a bit of a slog. For me it’s a blast to get the spray in my face as my boat jumps up over a wave and crashes down into the next. It is in these conditions where the NDK Explorer really shines. In good waves the adrenaline kicks in a bit and you can feel yourself becoming one with the water and just flying along. I can remember when these conditions would have been terrorizing. Heck, I can remember when whitecaps of any size scared the heck out of me. . .
As we approached the Two Creeks Nuclear Power Plant we soon realized that we could no longer locate the warning buoys in amongst the waves and whitecaps (white horses?). Just to be safe we angled a bit further out into the lake. When we did finally locate the buoys we found that we had navigated just past the boundary they marked in the chunky water. Apparently we were now safe from homeland security snipers lighting us up with their laser-sights. We paddled the rest of the way around the power plant without feeling the need to look for little red dots on our PFDs.
Oddly it was not long before the wind receded almost as quickly as it appeared. As we continued back to Point Beach the wind steadily decreased to that of a gentle breeze by the time out boats slid up on the warm sandy beach. This is as good a place as any to remind you that if you plan on getting into kayaking you had better learn to love hauling tons of gear uphill through sand. It seems that is a constant theme running through this paddling season. I swear the only person who has walked through more sand is Laurence of Arabia and he wasn’t carrying a kayak!
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