Lost on the water (Umbagog, Part II)

    Here was a “virgin” experience I hadn’t quite planned on – getting lost in our kayaks as they took on water from a roiling lake.
     My friend Miriam and I had left our campsite about 9:30 a.m. for what we thought would be a short paddle up the Rapid River at the northeast end of Lake Umbagog, where we heard a bald eagle’s nest could be seen.
     We paddled as far as the rapids, got out and had a snack, then headed back down the river. We were almost to the lake when Miriam shouted my name and pointed toward a dead tree on shore. There, in all his majesty, a bald eagle perched on a naked limb, presiding over the surroundings like a monarch surveying his kingdom, the sun glinting off the white of his head as if it were a crown. We paddled back and forth several times to take him in, checked out the nest on a nearby tree, then made our way back to the lake.
     But it was a different lake than the one we had left a couple of hours earlier. Lake Umbagog is shallow – 12 to 14 feet at its deepest – and the slightest increase in wind velocity can produce quite a chop on the water. And, we were disoriented. We hadn’t brought our map of the lake (lesson one) and hadn’t paid close enough attention to landmarks on the way out (lesson two).
     I don’t know how to swim.
     We paddled hard and nervously, reminding each other of sites that looked familiar – a green-roofed cottage there, an odd-looking wharf there, as the waves grew in height and intensity. Finally we passed campsite 18, which we knew was the closest one to ours, and thought we were home free. But after a half-hour of hard paddling, we saw nothing that looked like our campsite, and the waves were turning into whitecaps pounding our boats against the shore.
     We beached them and got out. There was no entry into the deep brush on the land, so we slogged through the water, picking our way among rocks and water weeds, rounding point after point in the direction we thought our site might be. Finally, we saw it. We had overshot it by a good half-mile.
     Back we went, part overland and part sloshing through he water, until we got back to the boats and turned them around. Then, reminding ourselves that there was chardonnay at the other end, we paddled our hearts out in the choppy water for 15 or 20 minutes until we arrived at the pull-in near our site, exhausted, exhilarated and chastened.
     I was dead asleep at 7 p.m.
     The next morning, our last, I sat on a rock overlooking the water and thought about why I love the place – not only for the adventure it provides (planned or not), but for moments like the one I was experiencing, alone. A mist had settled over the water and as it began to burn off, it moved in smoky columns, the forms looking like wandering, nomadic wraiths. Occasionally, I could see dabs of green across the water – an impressionist’s version of trees. Waves lapped the rock I sat on. I felt I could have been in a dream.
     Two hours later, all packed, we sat on the same rock with our gear around us and waited for the transport to pick us up and take us back to base camp and our car. We just heard it puttering toward us when something above caught my eye.
     “Look, Miriam,” I breathed.
     A bald eagle, wings fully spread, soared over us and away.