Most of you know that we do a traditional New Years paddle. Our new years paddle one day delayed was from White Rock Bay on Antelope Island to the South Marina of The Great Salt Lake. It was a 21 mile paddle with a 9 mile open crossing at the end and a long haul across dry lake bed at the beginning. Because of the limited day light hours, the not very early opening time of the marinas, and the shuttle time we had to keep moving. We took a brief stop at mother-in-law and mother of mother-in-law rocks. I don’t know who named these rocks I will just say Freemont or Bridger and leave it at that. We also stopped near the south end of the island to take in some calories before the crossing. We departed the island about 1 mile before the south end to shorten the trip as day light was rapidly closing. As you can tell by the last frame we had little extra light to go but we did have our headlights handy. One compliment to the Antelope Island and South Marina employees. When we were about 50 yards from the south marina the rangers came out in their boat. They came over to us and ask if we were the 3 kayakers from Antelope Island. We replied yes and they said that the Island had radioed them and ask them to watch for us to make sure we made it O.K. The precaution was not needed but was appreciated. The shore was dotted by the typical plastic trash and dead Eared Grebes. It is not uncommon to have a large die-out of grebes that congregate on the lake. We did see one large mule deer but were surprised that we did not see bison or coyotes which are common on the island. Golden Eye and Northern Shovlers were abundant. I found a cool red hot chili peppers paddle mostly buried in the sand and the transmitter from a weather balloon. That was about it for cool wash up stuff.
Link to a few photos https://picasaweb.google.com/scottwap/AntelopeIslandToSouthMarina?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPyirp7Bx-a3nwE&feat=directlink
Link to Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91MzVqINAdw