With bands of stormy weather passing through the region, I decided to skip a snowshoe-camping trip this weekend and stay in town instead. I took a Folbot out on Green Lake here in Seattle to test a hull patch I’d applied a month earlier.
My girlfriend Rachel and I would be kayaking down the lower Columbia River in a few weeks, and this would be her boat for the eight-day trip, so I wanted to be sure its hull was in good shape.
Route map. Green Lake is the cultural heart of north Seattle.
Green Lake rainbow. For all its legendary rain, Seattle does not actually experience many rainbows.
Former bathhouse, built in 1927, now a community theater. Nowadays, most people swim in pools, not lakes.
Paddling past pedestrians along Green Lake shore. Somehow, rain that would seem miserable ashore seems inconsequential afloat.
Returning to Aqua Theater launch point. These concrete bleachers are all that remain of a once-sprawling theater that presented swimming female “aqua follies” shows.
The patch held up great—not a drop of water got in! And with a drysuit to keep the day’s periodic downpours from soaking me, I stayed nice and dry too.
This was my first time on Green Lake, even though I’m from here. I’d always done my local paddling on other waters: Lake Washington, Sammamish River, Elliott Bay, Lake Union, Shilshole Bay, the locks, Alki Point…just never this little beauty ten blocks from home. It’s fun to see familiar old places from a new, nautical perspective.
—Alex Sidles