#SundayPaddle: Meet Tatianna!

I unboxed Tatianna, my new stand up paddleboard (SUP) on Labor Day weekend. I’m one of those weirdos (no offense to my fellow weirdos) that name everything. Tatianna Weston Webb is a surfer on the Body Glove team and I felt it was a fitting name for my new board. I actually wasn’t going to buy one this year but Bill, while out shopping, alerted me of a smoking deal and I jumped on it. I brought her camping instead of Nigel, my kayak. (I did mention I was a weirdo.) She came with an electric pump that plugs into your car’s power port.

Her underside, before I attached the yellow fin. Here we gooooo!! 72 and sunny – motivation to stay balanced and upright. This would be my second time on a paddle board.

Bill drove me to the boat ramp where I would launch and we saw these two guys carrying a bucket down to the water. They gently emptied it and stood there looking down. We got closer and saw they were baby turtles. They had scooped them up from under their camper. They put them all in the water and they began to swim away.

Google Lens said they were baby snappers.

I launched my new board and off I went. I started by kneeling, then standing. Round Lake is smaller, with mainly fishing boats, so it’s very calm. After a while, I’d switch back to kneeling, then sitting. I did this for a while just for the practice of getting up, and getting back down.

And what was also nice, as I’d see others doing later, was laying back and just watching the clouds.

I think this may have been a black marsh turtle.

A friend of mine mentioned either this summer or last when I was talking about wanting a paddle board that the vantage point is so cool. Standing, if the water is clear, you can see the bottom, the fish, turtles.. She was right.

It’s hard to see but this is a trench in the seaweed carved by an animal. There was large pile of sticks in the distance and I’m pretty sure this was his driveway leading up to it.

Finally I decided to make a run for Wampler’s Lake. There is a canal that connects Round and Wamplers, that goes under Wamplers Lake Road. Obviously had to kneel to make this passage.

Under the bridge.

I took a break near the Wamplers Lake boat ramp. Wamplers is an all sports lake, so lots of boats, tubing, wave runners, which makes it pretty choppy.

I made it to the canal by Jerry’s Pub, which leads back into Iron Lake.

Had to crack up at the name of this boat.

I scared a blue heron but caught him mid-flight.

I made it to Iron Lake, but realized I pretty much had to turn back to make it back to the campsite for dinner plans we had made with family. I could have stayed here for hours.

On my way back (OMG) this snake was sunning himself on the warm concrete wall of the canal.

In the distance is the Wamplers Lake boat ramp and I caught this family of swans.

I caught mom or dad diving for food with their tail end in the air.

Welp, this was the last photo I took that day, and I’m glad everything was stowed in my dry bag. I paddled back under the bridge and really started to try to make tracks as we had dinner plans with the family. Once back into Round Lake, I turned the corner and somehow managed to lose my balance and fall forward. I face planted onto my dry bag and flopped into the water. Water over my head.

Great. This is the part I hadn’t practiced yet. Mind you, this was my second time ever on a paddle board. On my first day, 4th of July weekend, my niece showed me how to get back on, but in waist/chest deep water. This was another story.

I struggled for the next 15 minutes to try to climb back on my board, but it felt like my life vest was in the way. (Yep, I always wear it, ESPECIALLY alone.) I knew I would get tired quickly, so I did not opt to take it off. I had two options, swim to the boat ramp, pulling the board, or swim to shore and get back on.

Ugh.

I was only about 50 feet from shore, but the entire shoreline of this lake is basically weeds and lily pads. And about two feet of stinky, black muck. That I’d have to swim and wade through. I made the choice to do it, and stepped through seaweed and lily pad stems, my feet sinking into muck I could already smell. I just prayed there were no leeches.

I finally stumbled on a fallen log and used that to step up onto my board. Yick. The final leg of my paddle was a bit cold as I was now soaked. But I didn’t lose anything and my dry bag was also put to test. Everything stayed dry. Well, that was an adventure.

I realized at dinner that I forgot to stop my Strava tracking (I do this ALL THE TIME thank God for Crop Activity) and mistakenly cropped out TOO MUCH! LOL great, my first long SUP trip and I deleted most of it. I found that Strava also had a Stand Up Paddle category, so that would have been cool. Next time.

The below is one of my kayak trips that shows roughly the path I took on my SUP. This is from two years ago, and oddly enough, to the day of this post, September 2nd. This time I didn’t make it very far into Iron Lake as I had to turn back due to time. So, just over 5 miles-ish?

I had a blast and I’m fortunate to add one more sport to my list of things I love to do.