Muddy Incident

Our lake level has been dropped for repair work to begin on our dam. But it keeps raining, and the rivers flowing into the lake are delaying the full drawdown that the repairs require. There's still so much to lure me out there, so I keep trying.

The mud is staying wet, and I can no longer reach the lake water from my cove, so I've been launching from a neighbor's shore. Alas! Even with wellington boots and snowpants (to keep dry and warm!), the mud sucked me in enough that I lost my balance trying to free my leg (without taking my boot off), and I toppled over into the mud. Signs of my struggle:

I had to pile branches and brush up against the side of my kayak in order to get in, and then had to sit in my kayak with a muddy behind - most uncomfortable. Hmm, looks like an elephant after having a mud bath!

And this is where the deeply embedded muddy fingernails came in ...

Upon my return, I beached at another friend's shore, a rocky one this time, in the hopes that I won't have a repeat performance of the mud negotiation.