Turtles all the way down
Jul. 19th, 2011 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jere7myBarring my ongoing issues with perfectionism, Pinewoods was almost entirely splendid. I knew it was going to be special when I was skinnydipping in Round Pond after the second night dance, backstroking from the dock where everyone else was to the tiny secret water stairs that lead to my cabin, and a shooting star flashed overhead. The streak of white fire had a gap in the middle, like a Morse code "M" or a broken I Ching line.
I spent a lot of time in or on the water, including a sublime (and slightly stupid) afternoon private skinnydip during a thunderstorm, with thunder rolling across the sky all around me; a canoe trip with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kdsorceress through the secret passage to Little Long Pond, during which we saw turtles and swans and geese; a solo kayak trip along the same route, on which I saw just one baby turtle swimming madly away from me in that ungainly way baby turtles have; and multiple hours gliding over the bottom of the pond with my goggles and my neutral buoyancy rocks™ (mocked though I was for carrying two big rocks around, they were indispensible).
I found various bits of rubbish on the bottom, including a T-shirt and an ivory necklace and a Gameboy cartridge and a mitten, but my greatest catch was a juvenile snapping turtle, about the size of a coconut. He was not at all pleased to be brought out of the water for photographs, and tried energetically to get his beak into my fingers, arching his five-inch snakey neck back over his shell to bite me and scrabbling at me with his little claws. I found a leech on his left hind leg, and in an attempt to be Androclesiastic I pulled that squirmy, slippery little bastard off while the Australians offered helpful leech advice ("Hev you got a metch?"). Took about five minutes. Once I was done, I released the turtle, which swam crankily away, muttering in Turtle, then looked back at my hand to find the leech had attached itself to the tip of my thumb. Well, crap. Leeches have hooks at both ends, so by the time I'd detached its mouth its tail had got a grip, like painful velcro, and vice versa. I did finally remove it, and I wasn't bleeding, and the leech survived, so there's an experience for the bucket list I guess.
Leeches are not the only biting fauna in the ponds. I was skinnydipping (yet again) in Round Pond, alone, inhaling the serenity of the crystal water and the blue bowl of the sky and the green perimeter of trees, when I felt a bite-and-yank on a particularly delicate (yet manly) part of my anatomy. A ten-inch bluegill had darted in to bite me. After I stopped shrieking (in a manly way), there it was, hovering in the water about three feet away, eyeing me hungrily. It was persistent, too, circling around behind me when I tried to wave it off. Bluegills have teeth, like the piranha; I have seven tiny parallel scratches, about a quarter inch long, right where I don't want them. I wonder if it was spawning season: Wikipedia says that "anglers find spawning season to be a very successful time to fish for bluegills as they aggressively attack anything, including a hook, that comes near."
Also in my catalog of injuries: I twisted my ankle at the Thursday dance, generating a nice puffy bruise on my instep, and got distracted while photographing ducks and fell down the camphouse stairs. My shins are scraped and bloody (people keep asking if I'm okay, but not as many as pointed out my sandal tan), but I saved the camera and got some pictures of ducks. Woo, ducks.
I spent a lot of time in or on the water, including a sublime (and slightly stupid) afternoon private skinnydip during a thunderstorm, with thunder rolling across the sky all around me; a canoe trip with
kdsorceress through the secret passage to Little Long Pond, during which we saw turtles and swans and geese; a solo kayak trip along the same route, on which I saw just one baby turtle swimming madly away from me in that ungainly way baby turtles have; and multiple hours gliding over the bottom of the pond with my goggles and my neutral buoyancy rocks™ (mocked though I was for carrying two big rocks around, they were indispensible).I found various bits of rubbish on the bottom, including a T-shirt and an ivory necklace and a Gameboy cartridge and a mitten, but my greatest catch was a juvenile snapping turtle, about the size of a coconut. He was not at all pleased to be brought out of the water for photographs, and tried energetically to get his beak into my fingers, arching his five-inch snakey neck back over his shell to bite me and scrabbling at me with his little claws. I found a leech on his left hind leg, and in an attempt to be Androclesiastic I pulled that squirmy, slippery little bastard off while the Australians offered helpful leech advice ("Hev you got a metch?"). Took about five minutes. Once I was done, I released the turtle, which swam crankily away, muttering in Turtle, then looked back at my hand to find the leech had attached itself to the tip of my thumb. Well, crap. Leeches have hooks at both ends, so by the time I'd detached its mouth its tail had got a grip, like painful velcro, and vice versa. I did finally remove it, and I wasn't bleeding, and the leech survived, so there's an experience for the bucket list I guess.
Leeches are not the only biting fauna in the ponds. I was skinnydipping (yet again) in Round Pond, alone, inhaling the serenity of the crystal water and the blue bowl of the sky and the green perimeter of trees, when I felt a bite-and-yank on a particularly delicate (yet manly) part of my anatomy. A ten-inch bluegill had darted in to bite me. After I stopped shrieking (in a manly way), there it was, hovering in the water about three feet away, eyeing me hungrily. It was persistent, too, circling around behind me when I tried to wave it off. Bluegills have teeth, like the piranha; I have seven tiny parallel scratches, about a quarter inch long, right where I don't want them. I wonder if it was spawning season: Wikipedia says that "anglers find spawning season to be a very successful time to fish for bluegills as they aggressively attack anything, including a hook, that comes near."
Also in my catalog of injuries: I twisted my ankle at the Thursday dance, generating a nice puffy bruise on my instep, and got distracted while photographing ducks and fell down the camphouse stairs. My shins are scraped and bloody (people keep asking if I'm okay, but not as many as pointed out my sandal tan), but I saved the camera and got some pictures of ducks. Woo, ducks.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 08:23 pm (UTC)Without some active work, I sink rather than float, so I'm always startled by the reminder that this is not true for most people. That's a cool system, though, especially with being so low-tech.
Every year, I vaguely intend to explore the ponds more, and every year I don't get around to it. Ah well!
no subject
Date: 2011-07-21 02:32 pm (UTC)