Saturday 24-Nov-2007
Ottawa River – Main Channel
Water level: -1.0 according to educated guess
Today was the River Junkies Cold Water Paddle Day
The temperature started out at -12C when I got up at 6am. I am not sure why the hell I would want to go paddling in that temperature but I didn’t drive 370km to wimp out.
The paddlers of the day would be Alex, Bobbie, Bryson, Geoff, Jenny, Laura, Rich, and myself. We stop at the McKoys putin and made a decision to start paddling at the Lorne and avoid the long cold flat water paddle. We started offloading the boats and changing into gear. There was lots of grumbling of whether we were going to paddle or not. It wasn’t a good thing when you could see the ice along the shoreline in the flat water sections. Bobbie, Laura, and Rich did the shuttle which seemed to take forever as the rest of us were shivering waiting. I put on every piece of warm paddle gear I had including the new SealSkinz waterproof socks I bought the day before.Rich decided to sport the 2008 Bob and Doug McKenzie paddle headgear.
We all hopped into our boats and headed off to Garb. Geoff and Alex decided to try some flat water loops and cart wheels. They rest of us basically went holy crap that must be cold. The theme for the day was NO SWIMMING.
My run through Garb was fine. I think I was just to the left of the Garb wave and pulled in behind Moby Dick. I got out to take pictures of Alex, Bobbie, Bryson, and Geoff surfing Garb. It looked really fricking cold. Jen and Rich paddled down to the lunch spot to meet Laura as she did not want to run Garb.
I finally made it down to Push Button where some of the others spent a little bit of time surfing before I got there. I looked at Rich and he said keep paddling its getting cold. Everyone had no problem with Butchers Knife. We did not even stop to play in the whirl pools.
We headed down to the Norman’s. Laura wanted to get out take pictures and was going to walk around The Norman’s. We waited in a holding pattern until she had the camera out and made our runs. I caught my normal eddy on the right and then made the rest of the run down to where the others were waiting. I got out to give Laura and hand with her boat as she walking down. She decided to get back into her boat and run Coliseum as it was a lot harder to walk on rocks covered with snow.
We ran the rest of the river to the takeout as people were getting cold. There were no swims today. My airbags were frozen and our gear was covered in ice. See pictures.
I really enjoyed my paddle today out with my friends. This would be my coldest ever day of paddling. I am glad I did not wimp out as I would have never heard the end of it from the others.
We ended up having a late lunch at The Middle of Nowhere in La Passe.
See pictures
