Alma Pond and the canoe that could!

It was Memorial Day - a day to celebrate, reflect, give thanks and subsequently paddle my ass across open bodies of water to fulfil zero day obligations.  And as it would be on this beautiful sunny Memorial Day, I would also be able to test out my Szuchie Mark I canoe rack system by driving down to Alma Pond near Wellsville, New York.  So with our floatable steed Starseed thrown atop the Suvie, Chicky and I headed out nice and early to try and beat the heat before temperatures creeped into the 90's as predicted (WTF - this is springtime in NY, that's way too damn hot!).

I was a little leery about my hodge-podge canoe rack, but I'll be danged...the thing worked perfectly!  I was so proud...I might have to market them and make trillions.  T.S. Thule and Yakima, there's a new cowboy in town!  Ironically, as we were heading south driving through Belfast, a pickup truck passed us going the opposite direction with three canoes/kayaks on the hood - - all supported by a pair of two-by-fours.  So clearly I'm not the only person on Earth who isn't content in spending $300 on two slivers of Swedish-fabricated plastic.

The highlight of our pre-paddling day was stopping in Wellsville for breakfast.  There's a little place on South Main Street called The Modern Diner.  This was a "greasy spoon" in every sense of the word - highlighted by the novel fact that above the counter there was a sign that indicated the distance of just about every legitimate town in New York State.  So as I sat there nibbling on my omelet, I found solace in knowing Arcade was only 43 miles away.  Haha.

At around 9am we hit the shores of Alma Pond.  According to the DEC, this is an 86-arce artificial impoundment located on the headwaters of Honeoye Creek.  Up until a week ago, I didn't even know it existed - but once I noticed there was a canoe cache here called The Far Side of Alma Pond by Brownout, I knew I had to pay a visit ASAP.  And boy I was glad that we did.  Within moments of detatching Starseed from the sultry grip of my Szuchie Mark I's (the shameless plugs probably won't end anytime soon), we were preparing to cast off from the hand launch.  With the exception of one fisherman we ran into as he was packing up and heading out, there wasn't a soul to be found anywhere around Alma pond.  That = hecka awesome.

Chicky's butt...er...the pond I mean...after casting off!

The pond was extremely peaceful, and almost entirely surrounded by woods.  It was an amazing setting.  The two things that I found odd though, were the extreme abundance of huge swarming flies (eww...gross), and the fact that the lake was really cloudy.  Reading the DEC website now, I realize why that was:

Despite being a very shallow pond, aquatic vegetation is lacking due to the lack of transparency of the water generally caused by algae blooms and turbidity due to the feeding activity of the bullhead and carp.

That would explain the pea-soup thing Alma had going on:

That's some hardcore turbidity going on there.

The cache from the hand launch was a little under a third of a mile, so it wasn't going to be a very long paddle before arriving at our first stop.  Of course, as we got out into the center of the pond, we got a better perspective as to the beauty of this spot.

As we closed the last 400 feet to the cache we picked a point along the shore in a little cove to dock our dinghy and hike into the woods to find the prize.  This was a superbly secluded spot, and once we mastered the art of parallel parking a canoe, we exited the boat safely and prepared the 150 foot trek to the cache.  Here's a couple shots from our cove-away-from-cove:

The woods surrounding the pond were as stunning as the pond itself.  Lush vegitation, little babbling runoffs and plenty of big happy hardwoods.  I was excited as I approached the zero, because this cache had not been found since August 2010 and being the first-finder in nine months was a neat bonus to all this nonsense.  Sure enough, there was the cache ready to be found.  There's not much else I like more than finding a big old 50-caliber ammobox waiting for me!

There was some celebratory whooping-and-hollering to be heard as we cracked the can and did our admin duties.  We made sure to rehid it nice and good for the next fortunate finder, and returned to our cove to decide what we would do next.  According to the GPS, there was another cache called Alma Pond a half-mile away that was located right along the shore.  Sure you could park within 100 feet of it, but we came all this way and had to squeeze every second out of our paddle time here.  So it was decided to cross back to the other side of the lake to find this cache.  Safely into the canoe, we pushed off from shore and started northeast to our next destination.

It was gorgeous on the lake, and I really enjoyed every minute we spent floating about.  A half-mile in a canoe is extremely short, and in no time we rolled up near the cache site.  We saw a parking spot, so we pulled up and unloaded.  It seemed that every time we got close to the shore, the flies would become a swarming obnoxious mess.  There must have been 100 huge flies buzzing all over the place here.  It was surreal, and yes...a teeny-bit gross.  Haha.  Once we left the shore, it was mostly bug free, and after the GPS got done screwing around, it gave us a bead on the cache, and once again I was signing into an ammo can that I had paddled too.

Our parking spot for the Alma Pond cache.

Seemingly confidant in our unblemished canoe-wrangling skills, we attempted to re-enter Starseed and continue our sojourn at Alma Pond.  For whatever reason (be it the swarming flies, the sweltering heat, or the general euphoria one feels from geo-yachting), I sort of lost sight of the prize...and by that I mean the ability to maintain my balance while keeping Starseed afloat.  One second I was watching Chicky stabalize the canoe from shore while I hopped on and tried to keep her sturdy...the next moment I'm cannonballing into green water...

SPLASHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...

Now that I was sufficiently wet from the neck down, I assessed the situation (while trying to ignore the fact that I smelled like week old fish).  Thankfully Chicky was high-and-dry on land with the electronics, so the only real harm done was that we had to dump a dozen gallons or so of pond water out of Starseed.  This was done pretty quick, and "Boarding Part II" went much more smoothly.  Here's what I look like after being B's D. in P.W.

By the time we arrived back at the launch, I had started to dry off.  Also, the pond had attracted quite a few visitors who gathered along the shore to fish, sun bathe and enjoy the amazing Memorial Day weather.  This was a great start to the canoeing season - here's hoping there are many more!