A few years ago I bought a sea kayak, a seventeen foot fiberglass beauty that is my favorite toy. I'd paddled canoes for years, even built one once, but was now hooked on the kayak . Kayaks are so much easier to paddle, so stable and a delight in windy or choppy conditions, not like canoes which are trouble in both.

I casually mentioned, a couple of years ago, that one day I'd like to take my kayak to New Hampshire's magnificent Lake Winnipesaukee. I wanted to again paddle those waters I knew so well as a youngster. They say you should be careful what you wish for in life, for it just might come true. And so it did.

I had my kayak bubble wrapped and boxed for the motor freight trip. It would go directly to the waterfront hotel where we'd been booked. Kathy had arranged everything - the deluxe accommodations, the airline tickets, the rental car and even shipping my kayak. She took care of every detail for my once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
My wife, Jean, and I flew from Albuquerque to Manchester, arriving around 11:00 PM. The airport auto rental desk stayed open, another of Kathy's special arrangements. We headed for a nearby motel for the night, as Kathy was sure we would be too tired to drive the remaining sixty miles to the lake at that hour.
Next morning we arose, breakfasted and drove to the lake and our waterfront resort hotel, The Margate. My kayak was there waiting for me, but the room was not quite ready as a convention the day before put cleaning crews behind. No matter, we'd just check the condition of the kayak and drive around to see once familiar places.

My boyhood home was on Governor's Island, on the southern part of that thirty mile long lake. Dozens of islands dotted those waters, many inhabited and others preserved as wildlife refuges. There were more cottages now than I'd remembered, for it was 1949 when my family moved away. I was then just a teenager.

I drove Jean to see Gilford village, where I attended grade school. And then we visited Laconia to see if the high school was still there.

By late afternoon we returned to the hotel and checked into our room. Kathy had gone first class for us, as we had a delightful view from our waterfront window. The lake was like glass and we could see most of Paugus Bay. Tomorrow morning I would paddle, but tonight Jean and I would enjoy a libation and then dine together. We'd hoist a toast to Kathy.

The next morning the weather turned foul, it rained and the winds came up. Things did not look propitious for my first paddling excursion. By lunchtime the winds died down. Only the steady rains persisted, but I wouldn't let that stop me.
I donned my rainsuit and hat, snapped on my life jacket, grabbed my paddle and headed for the beach where I'd left my boat overnight. Rain or no rain I was going to paddle. From our window Jean watched as I stroked the waters and headed down Paugus Bay towards the Weirs.

The Weirs is a place where Indians used to fish in the narrow channel where the bay meets the main body of the lake. The water shallows through the channel and the current increases, for the Lake is the headwaters of the Merrimac River which flows south through New Hampshire, crosses Massachusetts and reaches the sea in Connecticut. The Weirs is a resort community and has been for over two hundred years.

I entered the main part of the lake, turned to look at Endicott Rock where colonial explorers marked their original discovery of the Merrimac's headwaters, then returned through the channel and down Paugus Bay to the Margate. Despite the steady rain I'd completed my first kayaking expedition. Thanks Kathy, wet but fun.

Jean laughed at my water-soaked appearance as I returned to the room at the Margate. I did look like a drowned something or other, but I was happy, delightfully so. And tomorrow I'd do it again.

Next day we strapped the kayak atop the rental car on a large foam pad stuffed in my boat just for that purpose. The weather was clear, the winds light. We drove to Gilford Beach where I planned to put in. At a marina there we launched the kayak and in minutes I was heading west across familiar waters.

First, I crossed Sander's Bay and then turned northwest toward Governor's Island. The new cottages, many more like estates, surprised me. My recollections were of unspoiled wooded shorelines, but now it was wall-to-wall development. No more vacant spaces I'd explored as a kid.
I paddled along the south shore of the Island, noting some of the houses where family friends used to live, all owned by new people now. Forty-five years of change made quite a difference. And there it was, my own boyhood home in a small cove just east of the bridge to the Island. I'd not seen the place from the water side in all that time.

It looked familiar yet somehow strange, for the people who own it now made changes. The most obvious was the light gray exterior, no longer a dark gray with red trim rough-cut planking the way it used to be. It used to blend in the shade of the big pines. Now it shouted at you.

I approached to within yards of the dock, a larger one than the simple kind we used. An expensive speedboat was tied to the dock. The most we ever had was a rowboat with a two and one-half horsepower Elgin outboard. And next door, in what had once been a vacant lot, was now an expensive two-story home occupying land we thought would always be a community beach for people whose places were built on the opposite side of the road. I guess that the rule changed.

Further west I paddled, around the point of land between our place and the Island bridge. My first glimpse of the bridge was a shock. It wasn't the same bridge at all but a new one, rounded and not flat as it arched up and over the boat channel. The bridge I knew was flat on top with inclined wooden ramps on both sides. This one was metal and almost twice as long as the bridge I knew. It just didn't seem right.

I paddled under the bridge and continued along the Island shore. The oval-shaped island is about nine miles in circumference. More houses everywhere. I had known the western half of the Island as undeveloped, nearly pristine with no perimeter road. Now every lot was occupied, each with a custom-built expensive-looking place. People with money replaced those of more modest means like us. It's strange to see the familiar now so drastically different.

I approached the western end of the island and paddled into broad Meredith Bay. A view of the Weirs appeared on my left and Stonedam Island on the right. I'd covered five miles so far and would make Sally's Gut by noon.

Sally's Gut is the narrow channel between Stonedam Island and the mainland. In the 1940's I'd been greatly impressed by a ride in a 35-foot motorboat through the gut. The shallow channel twists and turns between rocks and boulders, barely wide enough for a boat to navigate. Now I traversed the gut in my little kayak, and still I was impressed with the area.

I paddled all the way through Sally's Gut, reversed course and returned to Meredith Bay. Just as I started to cross the broad open water towards the Weirs, I noticed the Mount Washington, a two hundred foot excursion boat carrying tourists, at the end of Governor's Island. It headed for the dock at the Weirs, and so did I.

I beached my kayak beneath the dock where the 'Mount' was berthed. Then I climbed up on the boardwalk and took a few moments to scan the waterfront. The place was not as I remembered it. Shops and restaurants were boarded up. The once-grand ballroom at the end of the pier now housed a game machine arcade. It had been decades since the big bands thrilled music lovers and romancing dancers. The KarmelKorn shop where I'd worked for three summers in the late 40's was closed too.

I found a small snack bar and grabbed a quick lunch before returning to my boat. The 'Mount' was already steaming away on its afternoon cruise. I watched it pull away and was pleased that it at least seemed to be the same. Yet I am old enough to recall the night that the old Mount Washington burned at the dock one winter's night, the glow of the flames visible from our island home. How sad that was.

Once again I paddled past Endicott Rock and south through the channel into Paugus Bay. The last four miles back to the Margate were full of memories. The tracks that followed the western shore no longer carried the Boston and Maine trains that I used to ride to 'Bean Town'. A short line local carries tourists from Laconia to Meredith today. And that runs only in the short summer months.
Jean was waiting for me when I beached my kayak. I recounted my excursion to her and expressed the feelings that came over me on each segment. It was not all disappointment, for indeed I enjoyed my paddling experience. Much was familiar and even the new was not a total surprise. The popularity of the lake was bound to cause growth and it had.

The overall beauty of the region still exists, the blue magnificent lake and the surrounding mountains are still breathtaking. It's a wonderful place to visit.

On the day before our departure, I paddled once more on Paugus Bay, but this time I shared my boat briefly with the manager of the hotel. He'd never tried a kayak and was curious about it. His thirty-minute test ride must have pleased him, for the grin on his face lasted until our departure the following morning. He promised to personally assure shipment of my boat back to Albuquerque.