Heartache on Sable Lake – Part 2

“Today could be a good day to do the whole lake.” Diane looked over her shoulder at Max.

            “Is that what you want to do?” Max was an accommodating guy. Not in all things but most. It’s like he took an oath to keep his wife happy. He did that in a thousand little ways, one of which was agreeing to paddle their canoe the entire circumference of Sable Lake. They’d done this before and it was far. The lake was two miles long and about three quarters of a mile across. But once the two of them got to paddling, got their rhythm down, they could make around in less than two hours. The sun was shining and it was early afternoon.

            “Sure, let’s go ahead. If it gets windy, we can hightail it back.” Max settled into paddling along the shoreline, heading to the far end of the lake. They skipped the cove, knowing that the cattails were finished and any tiny turtles there earlier in the season had grown up and paddled off themselves.

            They made good time. And it was a spectacular ride. The trees were deep in their fall colors. Reds and golds of the maples and aspens popped from the background of deep green from the white pine and Norway spruce. Diane stopped paddling when they came around the northeast curve to fish her phone out of her pocket and take a picture. Max laid his paddle across his knees and did the same. It was impossible to not to record that moment. You never knew if it could be the last time to see such splendor.

            Rounding the end of Sable Lake to the other side came sooner than they thought.

“We’re making really good time,” Diane said, turning her head to look back at Max. “We could be back in an hour.”

            It was then that the wind picked up.

            The two of them, canoe partners for so long, were used to this. They’d start off with the lake as smooth as glass and then just a bit of wind would start and then soon they were facing little waves, then white caps. They’d had times when they had to turn around and head straight into the wind. Max would call a cadence and Diane would paddle to his shout. This had gotten them out of trouble on Lake Superior a couple of times, one where if they didn’t paddle hard and together, they would have crashed into the big boulders at the break wall.

            “We need to head back,” Max yelled. “It’s really picking up. We don’t want to be stuck all the way over here on the other side. Let’s boogie across.”

            Diane hated the idea of paddling across the lake. They’d done it before, sure, but it always gave her the shivers. Capsizing in the middle of a lake that was forty feet deep. Still, if Max thought they could do it, they could. She trusted him. In canoeing. In all things.