Vibe Coding While Paddleboarding: A Hidden Gem at Wanlu Lake

Outdoor notes: Vibe Coding

When I got up this morning, my wife said: why not work from somewhere else today?

Sure. Let’s go, right now.

We set off at ten in the morning, straight for Wanlu Lake. In the backpack: sunscreen, a change of clothes and one phone.

01 / Go on a weekday

An hour and a half by car, not far. But places like this have a hidden trick: avoid the weekend.

On a weekday, Wanlu Lake has few people, calm water and no queue for paddleboards; the experience is instantly twice as good. Perfect for people like us: freelancers, OPCs, remote workers.

We’re here. The sky was cooperatively blue; this is a Grade I national drinking water source. With typhoon weather in the surrounding cities, it’s been very hot these days. First, find somewhere to hide!

02 / Before getting on the water, start the tasks

Fun is fun, but the ads can’t stop. Before getting on the water, I set up today’s tasks.

UU Remote: a Windows machine at home stays on and online, and the app is installed on my phone.

Tap “Enter Desktop” and the computer at home is in my hand; the controls and the connection are smooth.

Connected to the desktop, handing out work to the two colleagues at home:

Claude Code watches the media buying side: several groups of live campaigns, following rules written in advance, stopping what should be stopped, grabbing what should be grabbed, with every decision logged automatically.

Codex handles the development side: evaluating and wrapping up new features.

Tasks explained, rules written; the rest doesn’t need me to be there.

Toss the phone in the bag, onto the board.

03 / Paddling for real

This time I was really paddling water (in Chinese, that also means slacking off).

Paddle out a way and the sounds from the shore are gone; all that’s left is the paddle cutting the water. Floating in the middle of the lake, you can think about anything, or nothing at all. For someone who sits in front of a computer year-round, that’s a genuinely scarce resource.

I paddled from the afternoon until the sun was low, more than three hours. Shoulders sore, mind emptied, energy completely spent. It’s been a long time since I felt “spent” like that.

Back on shore, I pulled out the phone for a look: over there, today’s automation tasks had all wrapped up too.

I spent three hours emptying my head; it spent three hours finishing the work. Each busy with our own thing, neither bothering the other.

04 / Wrap up, eat fish

Before heading back, complete the ritual: Wanlu Lake is the largest reservoir in South China, and the fish is genuinely fresh. Cooked simply and straight to the table, with a couple of Hakka stir-fries on the side, a perfect day.

Home, open the computer, and the task logs on the desktop are neat and complete, no different from if I’d been sitting there watching.

I always used to say: once the automation is fully working, I’ll travel everywhere and work as I go.

This Wanlu Lake trip counts as an early canary test for that goal.