Going For The Island Caches Part 1: Blenkinsop and Langford Lakes

I call this entry "Going For The Island Caches (Part 1)" mostly because we are not done yet.  There are many islands in our local lakes and around Victoria that have caches on them, and we are determined to get them all.  With this in mind we had to aquire a boat, so we recently purchased a Seahawk 2 rowing dingy, and this is what we will be using for some of them!  

This time around we did the islands on Blenkinsop and Langford Lakes.  Those caches are "Blenkinsop Island - GC1G1A7" by Kiwibirdman & "Bring your wings, Paddle your boats Geocache - GC17W3B" by The Rubber Duckies.

We started off with "Blenkinsop Island - GC1G1A7".
And OMG !!!!
What an adventure! This has been a cache I have wanted to do for a long time, but also was the one I dreaded the most! I have read the past log entries and cringed at the thought of the stinky putrid mud, I have shivered at the thought of what may be in the water once I stepped in, and I have been afraid of the water weeds and the "Jurassic Scale" lily pads and not having the strength to get through them! But all those concerns were for not once we made it and found the cache.

I actually wish my camera that I can take in the water was functional this day so I could have documented everything, but sadly it was not. So in the end I had to bring my good camera, and this required its use only when there was not a high risk of destroying it... Otherwise it stayed in its zip-lock bag!

We got the dingy ready at the parking lot and started to walk it down. You should have seen the looks we were getting from all the cyclists passing by.

We reached the bird blind (where we decided to put in), I stepped in and the smell hit Just Leafy and I right away. YUCK! But we steeled ourselves against it and I got Leafy to get into the boat. I slowly waked the boat until we were semi-clear of the weeds that blocked the way and hopped in myself.
It was a bit of a task to get fully out into open water, but once there we were good to go.

We rowed the 200+ meters out and around to the north side of the island, and very quickly had to negotiate our way through those huge lily pads. But with a bit of grabbing and pulling we made it though and I checked for bottom with the paddle, and with a smile turned to Leafy and told her that we had made it.

I disembarked our boat and entered up to my thighs in the still stinky water. But at this point I didn't care, cause the goal was pretty much right there. Just Leafy stayed on the boat and tried to document the moment with our camera.

Once on the island there was about 10cm of water covering the place, and every step I made caused bubbles of gas to rise around my feet. And with very little effort I soon spotted the large cache in its resting place and called out "There it is", signed the log and returned as found.

I hopped back in the boat, and we made our second trip through the lily pads and headed back to shore. Once back on dry land I gave Just Leafy a high-five and a kiss, and we headed back to the Jeep to head over to Langford Lake to clean up and do one more island cache for the day.

So we arrived at Langford Lake and got our gear ready and headed down the path.
We put in at the public beach, and were pleased to see this nice clean water (as clean as clean lake water goes). Once cleaned up a bit we hopped into the boat, and started the journey.

This adventure is nothing like the last one we had, and with a bit of work we quickly made our way to the island. We made landfall at the east side, and were not greeted by any geese.
And after a short search made the find! We signed the log, and explored this tiny island a little before returning to the boat.

Once back in the boat and ready to return to shore, we realized why we made such good speed when we made the trip over.... The wind was at our backs! But now the wind was against us, and we were getting no where fast. Thankfully a nice elderly couple with their grandkids came by us in their electric motorized boat and agreed to give us a tow back to shore.

Once back we thanked our saviors, and made the short row to shore and got ready to leave.

A big thanks to Kiwibirdman and The Rubber Duckies for placing these caches that gave us a completely new and exciting adventure to add to our memories!