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FRIDAY- Sady spent Friday morning getting ready for her afternoon on the lake. The weather was good so she wouldn't need to worry about storms and high winds. She might be a novice when it came to water transportation, but she wasn't foolish. She used public satellite images of the Whistler Lake area to figure how far it was from the boat rental to the Powell's house. There was even a good view of the house so she wouldn't have to spend too much time trying to figure out which house to watch.
She packed an extra set of everything in case she ended up in the water. Given the amount of jet skis and fast boats on the lake that possibility seemed more likely by the minute. She hoped the man at the rental office wasn't lying about giving her a safe kayak.
As she left Ann Arbor Sady thought the whole of Detroit was exiting the city at the same time. Traffic was terrible, and she was happy she wasn't traveling far. At the boat rental shop she checked in and sighed with relief when she saw her kayak. It had stabilizers to help prevent unwanted spills into the lake. The kid in charge was happy to give a crash course to a pretty young woman, free of charge.
Once she got comfortable Sady paddled toward the Powell's. She couldn't get too close to shore and take pictures, but straying out too far in the water was signing a sure death pact with the grim reaper, or boater in this case. Wondering why lakes didn't post speed limits and patrolling cops, she ventured her way along the lake to the Powell house. Paddling by at a normal speed, she was happy to see activity on the shore.
She needn't have worried about attracting attention. Speed boats, jet skis, fishing boats- the water was peppered with them and Sady kept expecting to hear an enormous crash when the inevitable pile up happened. By some miracle they avoided running over the smaller vessels and didn't annihilate each other. With her kayak rocking in the wake of the lake vessels, she wouldn't linger any longer than necessary. Taking the camera from her bag, and hoping a wave wouldn't jostle it out of her hands she scoped the shore from her drifting kayak and zoomed in on the beach at the Powell's.
Well, either Mr. and Mrs. Powell had made up, or she had good proof photographs for CJ. Those weren't teenagers making out on the shore that's for sure. Sady took a few more pictures before putting her camera away and paddling a little farther along the shore. Finally, the noise and the activity on the water became so distracting she decided to return to the boat rental.
She gave the kid from the rental shop a big tip when he came down to the dock and helped her out. Her shoulders and arms were sore from paddling and she prayed she could control her muscles for the drive home. It would be embarrassing to have survived the craziness on the lake only to hit a tree on her way home because her arms felt like rubber.
Traffic heading south wasn't as bad but Sady let out a breath of relief when she made it safely to her apartment. Then she had a long soak in the tub, before rubbing her aching arms with muscle relief lotion. When she lay down to sleep that night she felt like she was still on the water, bobbing up and down in the kayak. About the time she worried she'd need motion sickness tablets the feeling passed and she went to sleep.