Bill and I started out at Hardees like we always do for a Tuesday Group outing. After having a good breakfast, we headed to the Great Dismal Swamp Nation Wildlife Refuge, where Lake Drummond is located. We stopped at their office for a bathroom break and then drove 6 miles down the gravel road to the lake. There were 8 boats already there and unloaded and ready to paddle. We got our boats in the water and had our safety talk and talked about our trip and how we were paddling on this beautiful lake today. There was very little wind, and we hugged the shoreline and had some shade in a few spots around the lake, everyone said the lake was the best that they had ever seen, and I agreed. We headed south around the lake and as we got to the Feeder Ditch, we found a tree across the ditch, luckily it was, on one end, high enough for us to paddle under. We paddled up to the Dam and 2 got out but didn’t stay there very long and then we were off again, heading back to the lake. The plan was to get to The Washington Ditch for lunch, and we made it by 12:15. They have a dock there and with the water in the lake being down about a foot we all got out of our kayaks and waded up to the shoreline. Here we all had lunch, whatever each brough with them, and Bob M. had a treat for all of us. Thanks Bob! We must have stayed here almost an hour before climbing back into our kayaks and finishing the last 3 miles. The total distance was 9.71 miles, that is when you hug the shoreline all the way around the lake, which some of us did. With the water as low as it was, we had to stay out a little further from the shore than we wanted to.
We had 12 Tuesday Groupers on the paddle today and you couldn’t asked for a better day to paddle than we had today, everyone that didn’t make the paddle today missed out on a beautiful day on Lake Drummond. The lake was flat all the way across, all day, I hadn’t seen that since the 1970’s. Hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. Thanks for coming out today, to all. Bruce Julian
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Thanks to Bruce for leading this fun paddle!
The lake was so calm that I made an unusual video of my kayak gliding through the still water. Google flagged the video as "An action video with no action!" You can see a slight bow wake and even a few bubbles go past.
It is about 9 miles around the lake.
Bill
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RW7MnwTgSdPhLvRTA
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Below are some pics from Tuesday's paddle.
Bruce - thanks so much for a wonderful paddle!!!
Bob M