By Tom Douglas

To provide a little relief for its viewers, KHOU Channel 11 has been running a brief “Moment of Zen” segment at the end of its 10:00 PM newscast. Not surprisingly, many of these segments involve images of calm water. Since my own favorite calm water is in the area around Lake Charlotte, it seemed like a good idea to try filming a short segment there. With a little encouragement from the show’s producer, Linda Shead and I set out on Saturday morning, June 6 to see what we could do.  

We arrived at Cedar Hill Park a little before the Houston Canoe Club group that was paddling with Joe Coker, and headed down the eastern shore of Lake Charlotte amidst a swarm of giant mayflies. Our prime location (marked by one of the red stars on the map) was back a little ways into the forest, just beyond the Lake Charlotte gauging station. This is the same spot that was featured in a video made back in 2015 by the Back the Bay campaign of the Galveston Bay Estuary Program. The forest and lighting were great, but thanks to Tropical Storm Cristobal, which was headed for landfall on the Louisiana coast, there was just enough wind from the northeast to ruffle the natural serenity. After a couple of tries, we reasoned that our best chances would be either at the north end of one of the lakes, or deeper into the forest.  

Following the coastline of Lake Charlotte down to the Mud Lake cut, we started shooting as we neared Mud Lake. This was it. Blue sky was reflected in the calm water, and bird songs could be heard. A fish made a small splash ahead of us, and a bird in flight crossed the frame. 

This was obviously going to be hard to beat, but we elected to try for another shot deep in the forest along Ghost Bayou, south of Mud Lake. We never found exactly what we were looking for, and we had to work our way through floating water hyacinth before we reached the Marshy Lake to the east of Lake Miller. Happy sounds of Joe’s group having lunch floated across the Marshy Lake, which was heavily covered in water hyacinth.  

To reach our final shooting location, we headed over to Lake Miller, then north toward the entrance of Mud Lake Bayou. Joe’s group emerged into the southeast corner of the lake, and waved hello as they passed to our right. Conditions here were really good now, though we didn’t have the reflection of the blue sky that we had seen at Mud Lake. Just to give the folks at the TV station a couple of choices, we filmed one version purely as seen from the canoe’s bow, and another version that included a few seconds of a paddler, to provide context.  

After a short stop for lunch, it was time to head for home – pushing through water hyacinth in Mud Lake Bayou and pausing to wave to several people who were fishing from the pier at Cedar Hill Park. Most of the paddlers from Joe Coker’s trip had already loaded up their gear when we arrived. Those who were still there reported that their trip had been great. We thanked them for clearing a path through the water hyacinth in Mud Lake Bayou, which would have otherwise been much more challenging for us. 

Back at home, I slowly worked my way up the learning curves for basic video editing software and YouTube. Eventually, I managed to send links for the three videos to Channel 11. And, sure enough, on Wednesday night, the clip from Mud Lake was broadcast. It was really satisfying to have seen this small project through, from beginning to end. 

Having said that, I am constantly amazed with the plant and animal life that abounds in the swamp. It just keeps drawing me back.