There 5 club members, Kelly Sziraky, new members Brent David, Jonathan Odell and Jennifer Ward and yours truly. Two of September’s friends, Maria Spence and Terry Turkal join the paddle. One of these ladies mentioned our paddle to a guy she works with and he and a friend joined us. We also had a couple join the paddle from Des Moines, IA who were camping at the park. Including Lisa our guide, the 11 us put on the lake at around 8:30 after caravanning from the visitor center to the lake.
This lake is an oxbow lake created by the Mississippi River. An oxbow lake is a U-shaped lake that forms when a wide meander of a river is cut off, creating a free-standing body of water. In south Texas, oxbows left by the Rio Grande are called resacas. In Australia, oxbow lakes are called billabongs.
Our guide pointed out to us that some of the bald cypress knees were so tall because often time the water is a lot higher, thus they would be barely visible. She said that she was glad that the water was higher, though low, so we didn’t have to drag our boats when out among the cypress. On her last tour, they had had issues. Thank goodness for the rain.
Yes, in some of the pictures, you can see the duck weed. It’s not hard paddling through it and it is only floating on top of the water but to me it’s seems like I am paddling in green pea soup…lol. She mentioned that it really is tiny little plants not tiny leafs. It was mainly in amongst the cypress trees and not in the open area of the lake.
We all enjoyed a 2-hour leisure paddle and just being out in nature. The weather was perfect, and we took off the lake around 10:30.