FamiLee Life

The Tipping Point of a Canoe...

on a lake on Memorial Day. It was quite the adventure and quite the christening of Sun-e, my new canoe. She is named after the famed Korean admiral, Yi Sun-Shin who is an ancestor of my family - part of the Deoksu clan. Of course, Admiral Yi was a man (and tradition dictates the ship's name must be feminine), so I just took the first part of his name and feminized it (pronounced, Soon-ee).

For her maiden voyage, I organized a group of friends to go canoeing on the Chain of Lakes and it was a wonderful outing. Peter met at my house to pick up my neighbor's canoe and we made our way down to Lake of the Isles where his canoe and Mike/Sarah's canoe were located. The convening of friends occurred at 12:30 pm and we made it onto the lakes by 1 pm. Four canoes in all with 10 people. Sun-e carried H-Dub, Kurt, and me. She handled the water admirably.

After 3 plus hours on the water working our way through Isles, Cedar and Brownie lakes, we decided to head back to shore. H-Dub took over the stern, steering, and I sat up in the bow, paddling. Kurt enjoyed the scenery in the center spot. Then, just a couple hundred yards from shore, we capsized! Yes, we tipped the canoe on her first outing. Fortunately, we were all safe, no possessions were lost, and Sun-e was in good shape. A fellow boater came over to help us gather our stuff and right the canoe, followed by our fleet of three canoes who offered help in between chuckles of laughter.

We eventually made it back to shore, a bit embarrassed, a bit disheveled and wet, and full of good memories.

Later in the evening, after showering up, we rode our bikes over to Peter's home for a bbq. A perfect ending to a wonderful, memorable, Memorial Day.

Now for some pics of the canoe outing. Enjoy.

The group, canoes rafted together

Hapa9 and PhT enjoying the good life

Kurt flexing (showing his strength before the capsizing)

HDub enjoying the sun and cameraderie

Posted by richlee at May 29, 2007 10:00 AM