Lake Rutledge Paddle Under the Perseids (Morgan County, Georgia)

The annual arrival of the Perseid Meteor Shower is always a fun time. Around the second week of August, the Earth passes through the remains of an ancient comet tail, which results in a what is generally the most spectacular meteor shower of the year. I've spent many a night camping on the playa of the Black Rock Desert in Northern Nevada admiring the night sky during this annual event. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find such dark skies in Georgia and I haven't really partaken in stargazing since moving here nearly four years ago. However, I recently learned that Hard Labor State Park organizes a night kayak trip out onto Lake Rutledge in the hopes of seeing some falling stars during this event. The park is in a pretty remote area of Georgia and this seemed like one of the better opportunities I might have in this area to see and enjoy the show. I decided to attend.

I arrived at the park around 9:30 pm, in advance of the start of the event. With the moon below the horizon, it's quite dark here and I'm forced to used my headlamp a bit to find my way around. Eventually, I find the rangers, check-in, and begin getting my gear together. It's going to be a short paddle . .  really more of a paddle to the middle of the lake and float, but life-jackets are still required. With everything in order and glow sticks on the front and back of my borrowed kayak, I launch into the dark waters under the night sky. 

There are roughly thirty people here, all with glow-sticks attached to their vessels in order to provide some visual indication of their location. After paddling out to an open section of the lake, we wait for the show to begin. In the meantime, I have some interesting conversations with some of the other attendees and rangers, mostly concerning Burning Man. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch one feint meteor streaking to its demise. A short time later, I hear some cheers as a bright one was spotted by several onlookers, but I missed that one. 

After about an hour of patiently watching the skies, with little return, we head back to the 'take-out'. On my way in, I see one bright meteor streak directly overhead. Only having seen those two meteors was a little disappointing to me. In my trips to the Black Rock, I had seen as many as 200-300 in the course of an hour. However, we're much closer to city lights here in Georgia and so, I'll have to just settle for what I got. It was still an enjoyable way to spend the evening despite the sparse appearance of the stars of the show.