Another Good Day on Embalse de Negratin

   Last Thursday looked a good day for another paddle on Embalse de Negratin.  A forecast of very little wind and 0% chance of rain was a brief kayaking friendly window in a period of iffy weather.  Plan for the day was to launch as usual from Playa de Freila, head down to the dam, and delve into a large inlet close to the southern end of it.  This inlet was one of the few places, at that end of the reservoir, I hadn't reached on previous visits.  If time allowed, and it did, there was a couple of other largish inlets on the opposite shore still to visit.

9:45 am. Thursday May 31st.  Kayak loaded up and ready to trundle down to the water.

I was soon passing the Torre del Maruq (see blog post 21/05/17), the remains of a watch tower from the time when this area was occupied by the Moors, on my left hand side ....... ...........

.......... and what I call 'the badlands' on my right hand side.

That's a little island dead ahead.  It wasn't there the last time (May  2017) I passed this way.  After the winter rain the water level is higher now, so it must be all that remains at the end of a spit of land.  The water was  certainly very shallow between it and the mainland.

Getting closer to that inlet.

Nearly there - have to turn left just past that big rocky outcrop near centre picture.

Going in, to what turned out be one of the largest inlets I'd delved into.  It was getting quite hot on the water now - being able to pause in the shade of the cliffs was pleasant.

This is as far as I could go.  Traffic noise from the road on the skyline disturbed the tranquility.  Apart from the road over the dam this is the only place where a main road passes anywhere near the water.

Many little bays and sub-inlets made this inlet interesting.

Heading back out towards into open water.

That little island again.  By this time I had looked into two more largish inlets and was looking for somewhere I could land, stretch my legs and have some lunch.  All the inlets I had been in were steep sided and places to land were very limited.

Stopped here for lunch.  Sizable fish were cruising the shallows - but weren't interested in bits of cold pizza.  But they would come up and take little beetley things which were scooting about on the surface of the water.  Earlier I had seen one fish come well out of the water to snatch something edible off the shore.  I've never seen a fish do that before.

Fed and watered and heading back towards Playa de Freila.  Clouds were now forming in the distance and reflections were getting interesting.  The clouds were  heralding a change in the weather.  It deteriorated again the following day.










   And so another nice quiet paddle on Embalse de Negratin came to an end.  Time on the water was approx. 3½ hrs.  Distance paddled, according to my Garmin GPS thingy, was 10½ kilometres.