Eagle Bay Boating

Written by

Conni Berns

May 30, 2007

Fourth Lake opens out before me like a dream come true, the mountains rise, first the blacker-green, then the bluer ones, then the greyer ones in the distance.  Off to the center right of the lake is Cedar Island, and the tiny Dollar Island sits   in front of us.  The beach seems long and endless to us kids, and the trees as tall as giants in a line behind us.  There are a few very small camps  right on the big beach, and they are not very fancy.  The time I recall, when we talked about a “camp” we meant a cabin, unfinished inside, 2 by4’s showing, plyboards up, often with gaps so you could see between the spaces.  Sometimes the roof leaked, OFTEN the roof  leaked.   The cabin was heated by a fireplace, or not.  Some camps just had cots for beds, and some used only bedrolls. 

Trucks have tires, and tires have inner tubes, like bicycles, today.  That is the important part of our adventure in Eagle Bay.  We all needed to find suitable kid-boats, and that meant innertubes.  Car tubes were smaller, and the plugs were short, so they would not jab you.  The truck tires were really huge, but those long nipples to fill them with air were painful when they got you in the back!  However, they carried a lot more prestige, and were a lot harder to get, since they were so big. 

The first set of tricks we mastered were the usual sit with the bottom inside, and paddle arms like oars.  Then we would jump or dive through the middle.  Another trick was throwing it as far as possible and coming up on the inside.

Adventure urges us onward, and we tied innertubes together with boat pillows, anchor on the end.  We put on masks and snorkles, and off to little beach.  In a caravan we swam out to the rock pile where the bouys are near Eagle Creek entrance.  We saw a lot of sunfish, bass, and grasses growing around.  What excitement!  this called for future planning! 

The next trip we tied on fishing gear,  and snorkled to the rock pile.  I did not like to fish, but Tyll did.  He would first spot the fish hideout, then proceed to fish for it.  He thus could check if he was fishing at the right depth, and if the fish liked the bait.  The fish could also be brought home on the boat pillow, or on a line.  I was there for the ride, swam off to have fun, or be a nuisance, as Tyll put it.

One of our childhood dreams came true one summer, when Tyll and I, and I think Bub-a-Flub, too all made sail-boats of our tubes.  We took sticks, tied crossbars to them, and attached our towels across them.  We waded in at Little Beach on a fairly windy day, and plopped into our tubes.  We paddled out past the dropoff in front of the stables (where Fields could not yell at us!), held up our towels, and waited…and waited…and waited.  The wind was light, and the towels were heavy.  I remember how heavy they were, and how much heavier they got with each hour we were out there in the water.  We finally got around the corner, and floated toward the beach, but  it took forever.  When we finally got to the beach our Mom was there.  She was NOT too pleased.  How dare we go out that deep, for that long, not tell her where we were, and have no way to come home in case of…. well in case of anything.

We did not try that again.  It was definitely not the yelling, but the exhaustion that convinced us to drop that idea.  However, I do recall that Tyll tried to build a raft.  He took pine logs, only small ones, lashed them together, like you see in the movies, or read in books.  He got on his raft and poled it out at little beach, however he never got anywhere, it kept tipping and going into the water on the corners when he moved or when seaplane waves hit it.  I think the Indians and natives that make canoes and boats to hunt and fish would do best to use the black inner tubes we used as children.  They did take us everywhere, and I think were as safe as anything I have seen, with very little training needed to use it properly.