I picked Chelsea up at the subway station in Toronto. We headed back to my place which looked like a tornado went through it. I hadn’t had a chance to re-pack all the paddling/camping gear since coming back on Monday. I started to re-pack the gear but had to go to my phyiso appointment for my shoulder. My physio guy says my shoulder is now fine compared to what it was when I had to go back a few months ago. He now has to look at my lower back. We had a late dinner and I finished packing up the car. It was my turn to pick for movie night and we watched National Treasure. Afterwards I took some nice pictures of Chelsea lit by candlelight. See selected pictures here.
I went to bed sometime after 11pm as I was really tired.
Friday 31-Aug-2007 Water level -2 3/8
We finally got on the road around 07:30ish. I drove up to just before Orillia and Chelsea drove the rest of the way to River Run. We pulled into the campground around 12:30 and setup our tents and got our paddling gear sorted out. We headed up to the putin at 1pm. We were supposed to meet some people there but that didn’t materialize. We waited until 2:30 and were going to head down river. I figured I could always beg for a ride back up to get the car later. I spoke to group of five from England. They gladly offered to setup a shuttle for us and follwed me back to River Run where I left my car at the bottom.
Chelsea and I headed off to McKoy’s. It was really weird not to be paddling in our normal big group but the rest of them all wimped out due to other social commitments. Chelsea opted to walk McKoy’s. I missed my line on the tongue of Phil’s by about 1.5 feet to the right. I went holy $h1t and threw all my body weight forward but ended up get sucked back in, windowed shaded a few times, and ultimately sucked out of my boat and swam. Hartley you should have been there buddy.
My swim through center Horseshoe was a epic swim for distance. I went under a kayak in BabyFace who turned out to be Travis. He wasn’t sure if he had felt something or not but looked back to see my helmet floating down with me attached to it. He gave me a tow back to shore. My boat decided to stay up in Football eddy. By the time I got back to the small island at Leftside Horseshoe my boat was sitting on the rocks. Thanks guys.
The rest of our run down the middle channel was fine with no problems. I told Chelsea that she was leading down all the rapids first without scouting. This is the lowest I have paddled the river. Iron Ring was a float through with boils. The upper corner turn to Sbend was kind of a creek run. I had fun on Sbend hole front, side, and back surfing.
Butterfly was still fun. Chelsea caught the first eddy on the right. I did the same but did not get it as high up as she did. We stopped at Elevator Shaft for a break and some more pictures. We both could not believe the difference in water flowing over it from a few weeks back.
Upper NoName was fun. I spent a while catching lots of eddys on the way down. Chelsea had to get out of her boat above Lower NoName as her leg was hurting. Turns out she got bit by a bug that rolled up and fell back into her boat. Never found the bug. Chelsea took the left creek line. I caught the first eddy on the right and then the wet juicy line down the right hand side.
Black Velvet was still fun. I managed to catch the first upper eddy on the right. I was happy as I never caught that one before. After that we stopped for some rock collecting on the last bend before the takeout. I got some for me and my step-mom garden. Chelsea got enough to build a small InukShuk.
We headed down to the takeout at RiveRun. Shortly after hitting the beach someone says to me are you Colin. Yep. I am Peter’s wife Anna. Anna does not paddle but decided to come out for a road trip with Peter and Stephen who were out paddling on the main then. I carried my paddling crap up top and jokingly said to Chelsea can you carry my boat up for me. I was totally shocked when I came back and saw Anna and her carrying the boat up onto the grass. Thanks gals. Peter and Stephen were just getting off the river and greetings were exchanged.
We headed back to the campground for dinner. We had PC Butter Chicken sauce with extra raisins on rice. It was yummy. John and Scott B. managed to track us down in the campground. They actually noticed my old kayak on my car first than my open boat laying on the ground. Not sure how they did that but go figure. We headed over to the Tours for the opening ceremonies for the Canada Cup and to check our email. It was nice to see and catch up with a whole bunch of people that I have met over the years. I managed to track down the Magg’s family back at RiverRun afterwards and then it was sleep time.
Saturday 01-Sep-2007: Water level lower than yesterday
Well this would be my day of embarrassing myself more than normal.
We started out the day with making hot chocolate and waffles for breakfast. We weren’t quite sure of the game plan yet. My plan was for me to run the main so I could watch the Canada Cup competition. Chelsea was going to run the middle with Peter. We headed shuttled our two boats to the putin and headed up to their campground area.
We ran into Martin and Mike from the Barrie club. The others were apparently on their way up. Chelsea and I piled into Peter’s van. Anna was playing shuttle bunny. Chelsea and Peter opted to put at Little Picky. Stephen and I head over to McKoy’s. Stephen made a clean run through Satlers. I tried to do the thread the needle thing but forgot about the right to left line thing and ended swimming in Phils ( 4 swims out of 23 ) with my pirate outfit on. Luckily me and the boat ended up in football eddy. I had to grab it on its second time going around in the eddy. I emptied out the boat and tried about 4 or 5 times to ferry across from football eddy to the river right side. Just wasn’t happening and ended up doing the bump and grind around the island. I ran into Geoof and Yuri at Corner Wave. I also missed taking pics of the Magg’s family when they were at Corner Wave (next time).
Chelsea and Peter headed down river. Stephen was playing on Babyface for a bit before we headed down river to Garb. Stephen headed over to the shore and got out above Garb. I lined up with the rafts and we were in a holding pattern due to the competition being on and then we got the go signal. I could hear Corey Volt on the speakers and he said here come the rafts … no wait we see a canoer … hey we know him it is Colin Moneypenny. I biggest fear today was swimming at Garb in front of the huge crowd. I had never swam Garb yet this year and I was wearing my pirate outfit and Canadian tie. I started my run down Garb and was a bit to much left when I hit the wave. The boat spun left and I was really close to the Moby Dick wall and ended up swimming. I am pretty sure there was a lot of finger point and laughing going on. John managed to get it on video. I swam with the boat down to the bottom and emptied it out. I was surprised to see my spare paddled had been ripped out of my boat (never found it).
Photo Credit: John B.
I was determined not to let that swim bother me. I wanted to redeem myself. I paddled back up in the big pond on the other side of the river left island. I sat in my boat with the high sign up waiting for another run. I was the only one in line and then I heard Cory say come on down Colin. I started my run and clipped the right side of Garb. Cory’s comment on the loud speaker was I will give you a .5 for that run. I peeled in behind Moby Dick for a quick rest and then Cory said come on out and do a Dick Spin on the wave. I shook my head no and this went back and forth a few times before he said do it for the crowd. I shook my head yes but you must realize I have never ever pulled out in front of Moby Dick to peel out or try and get on Garb. I was really nervous and figured the worse that could happen is another swim. I paddled up the eddy to the top. I took a few looks at the front diagonal wave and Garb behind me. As I started my run Cory commented on how this would be some cool carnage. Not this time. I managed to get my most extreme quickest Jet Ferry ever across the river. I ended up bumping into the river right wall sideways and had to push off. I got some cheers from the crowd. I headed down river and pulled out. I walked back up to have snacks and take pics of the crowd and the competitors. I talked to a lot of my friends I have met over the years. They were all quite surprised of the jet ferry as they all thought I was going to end up in Garb sideways and swim.
After a couple of hours Stephen and I head off to PushButton. I did not have too much success there. I had some great surfs on the wave below the extreme river right chute. I left Stephen and PushButton and head down river with some open boaters from the Portageur group from Montreal. It was nice to catch up with Wendy as I had not seen her in a year. My run through Butchers Knife was clean. I had a great run at the Normans. I caught the first river right eddy again after boofing the ledge. I had a great dry run at Coliseum by taking the center and then left line. I headed down Dogs Leg and Farmer blacks and on to the takeout. I was hungry and getting tired.
I stopped to talk to Katie who is the weekend takeout/beach person at RiverRun on my way up the hill. She is a sweetheart. I carried my paddling crap up to the campground and then walked up to get my car from Peter’s area. I found a note on my dashboard from Chelsea. She was down at Garb watching the competition and her run down the river. I changed into some dry clothes and headed down to pick her up. I almost ran over Nick Troutman when he was jogging up the road to get his moms van from the top. I ran into more people at the parking lot I had not seen in a while. I saw the funniest bumper sticker on a boat that said “Paddle faster I here banjo music”. I walked up to find Chelsea. I ran into Emily Jackson and gang in the upper parking lot. They had a slight problem. Van with no roof racks and boats to shuttle. I told Nick and EmJ that I would take the boats on my car as I had room. Just think my boat with EmJ’s pink kayak beside it. Talk about colour clash. I told Paula I would see them at their house. Matt Troutman hopped in with Chelsea and I. Matt did great in the competion as it was his first one. He placed 8th out of 24 competitors in the junior men’s class. We got to Matt’s house and offloaded the boats. The others showed up a little while later. We told them we would see them at the Tours later for closing ceremonies.
We headed back to our camp. Stephen finally showed up as he was having dinner with us. Peter took Anna on a world wind tour of the valley and were having dinner at the Wilno. We had pasta with roasted red pepper sauce, toast, and jello for dinner. Peter and Anna came back after we had finished dinner. I asked them if it was ok for Stephen to come to the Tours with us and we were off. I met up with John to get the video footage. I gave Paula a DVD with the days pics on it. She will share it with the BeachBurg locals. I also gave one to Yappa. I watched the closing ceremonies while Chelsea was catching up on emails. I talked to everyone I knew and said goodbyes until next season. I managed to score a Level Six hat from Sharky. I was up on stage when he was throwing them into the crowd and yelled at him “trade you a dvd of pics for the hat” and the deal was done.
After that it was back to camp for some sleep time.
Here are selected pictures from Saturday at the Canada Cup
Sunday 02-Sep-2007:
I dragged my butt out of bed around 06:30. I emptied out the car and re-packed it for commuting mode instead of throw crap in the car storage mode. I dropped our boats off at the top of the Lorne at 7am. The sunrise at the Lorne was gorgeous with the mist burning off. I managed to take a few pictures of it.
I headed back to camp. Chelsea was up and relaxing on the picnic table. It was time for breakfast of oatmeal cereal and toast with PB. We headed up to Peter’s site to she what the scoop on paddling was. Initially we were going to all run the main. Carol was going to join us. After some discussions plans changed. Chelsea and Peter were going to run the Middle Channel again. Stephen was opting out waiting to go play at Push Button later on in the afternoon. This left Carol and I to run the Main.
Everyone departed ways. Carol and I headed of to the Garb putin. Our run through Garb was fine. I clipped the right side of the wave and peeled in behind Moby Dick. I hopped out and started taking pictures of Yuri and Bobbie. After about a half hour I decided to see if I could peel out above Moby Dick better than the day before. I headed straight up and peeled out just clipping the right side of the wave where I normally do on my run down through Garb. I was very happy with that. I think my goal for next summer will be to practice peeling out at the top of Moby Dick to see if I can actually surf Garb in my boat.
Carol and I headed off to Push Button. I tried to get a couple of surfs in but they sucked. I ended up swimming on my attempt at a side surf due to too much lean on the upstream side. I took some pictures of Mark and Jessica as they were part of Yuri and Bobbie’s crew.
All of us headed down river. This included Carol, Yuri. Bobbie, Mark and Jessica. My run through Butchers Knife was fine. I ran the left line and eddied in behind the rock on river right for safety in case of swimmers. Yuri and Bobbie ran the big wet line. The others ran the left line. Everyone had lots of fun in Brain Douche whirlpools.
After that is was off to the Normans. Bobbie said he never saw me paddle the big stuff before and said I should lead. I took the center to right line and caught the first eddy up real high after running the ledge/hole. Bobbie came in with me. Yuri and the others ran the middle line. I ferried way out and tried to avoid the boils. Mark got flipped twice. I got spun around a few times myself. Not sure about the others as they were already down.
Mark asked me if I had ever run the right technical line on Coliseum. I had never ran it and decided what the hell and I followed him. It was definitely more of a wet line then my normal center line and deek to the left run. I had a blast.
After that we headed towards Dogsleg. Yuri and Bobbie were going to run Center Slot. I asked what it was like at this level and they advised that I should not run it. I watched them run it from above. I saw that Yuri only dropped down about 1.5 feet or so on their run. I decided to run it and took the right line and made the drop. Bobbie and Yuri were surprised to see me do it. I was very happy on that run. The others ran Dogsleg.
Farmer Blacks was interesting. I caught the river left eddy real high as I dropped over the rock. I tried a couple of surfs that did not amount to much. One of them resulted in a swim across the bay. I emptied out my boat and took a munchy break. I walked along the shoreline collecting some really neat looking rocks to add to my collection of souvenirs.
Carol and I headed down to the takeout. I left my boat at the beach and headed up to talk to Katie for a bit before going up to the camp site. After that I headed off to Peter’s site to change and get my car. I had to do a quick run into Forrester Falls for gas as I was running low. I managed to burn Bobbie and Yuri a copy of the days pictures onto a DVD on the way there and back. I did a slow drive by and flung it out the window at them. They said no way … are they the pics … yep.
I picked Carol up and ran her back down to Garb putin to get her car. I ran into some of my friends and said goodbye to them as I would most likely not be back up this season. I went back up to camp site and started taking down my tent a packing up the car. I went down to the beach to see if Chelsea was back yet. Stephen was getting impatient and wanted to paddle. I ran him down to Garb. By the time I got back Chelsea was at camp. We got the rest of the stuff packed into the car and headed off to my dads for the night. After a scrumptious dinner of curry chicken we headed down to the Petawawa river to check out the level. We checked out Lovers and Railroad it was real low compared to spring.
Here are selected pictures from the weekend
Ottawa River
Petawawa River
Monday 03-Sep-2007: Gull River Level 8.15ish lake at bottom was high
We left my dads around 8am and got to the Gull just around 11ish. We ran into Yuri and Bobbie in the parking lot. We had a quick lunch and got in a few hours of paddling. Steve Horvath and his wife (sorry forgot her name) ended up helping Chelsea with her roll later on in the day. Thanks Steve for helping her out and the conversation in the parking lot.
I had a lot of fun paddling today. I spent some time trying to catch as many eddys as I could. I managed to get a surf on the wave back from the Otter Slide. I was very happy with that. I ran into Carol, Jari, and Elain in the parking lot when I was getting changed at the end of the day. It seems everyone who was paddling on the Ottawa had the same idea to use Minden as a pit stop on their way home. We stopped at BoatWerks on the way home as Chelsea want to buy herself a necklace. After that it was Valumart for some snacks and home. Traffic wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I got off the highway 11 before the 400 merge and went through Barrie.
Once at my place we offloaded the car and had dinner and relaxed watching movies, checking emails, and writing a trip report.
