Xmas Holidays

This would be the first xmas dinner I have had at my place since the marriage breakup a few years back.

My dad and step-mom showed up on afternoon of the 24th and this would be the first xmas dinner ever at my place for them. We spent the afternoon / early evening putting away all the food, watching movies, and of course munching on finger foods before heading off to bed to await for Santa's arrival.

Just like little kids they were up early xmas morning scurrying around the tree looking at the gifts that Santa had left the night before. Way toooo many to count. After the frenzy of wrapping paper being shredded open and thrown all over the place it was time for breakfast of bacon and eggs to order followed by a cleanup of the mess they made from presents.

The next few hours were spent getting stuff ready for xmas dinner before my sister and bro-inlaw showed up for dinner as well. They finally made it here where the next few hours was spent catching up, pigging out on turkey, ham and the multitude bottles of wine that managed to find their way to the table.

My kids finally showed up late that evening just after my sis/bro-inlaw had left. Magically Santa had left them some presents under the tree and they opened them. After that it was drinks and realxing watching a movie.

Boxing day was basically spent indoors watching more movies and visiting with friends that had dropped by to see my parents.

All in all it was a busy but nice xmas and was great to see everyone from the family together at the same time in the same place!

Second photo shoot in the home studio

I spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out how to make the new studio a little more functional and spacious. It took a bit but I think I have it all worked out.

I needed to find a friend to do another test run with. I was online one night talking to my friend Kristi and I asked her if she would be interested. She had seen alot of my other photos and like the concept and said sure. The only problem was very small window of time to do the shoot as she is moving out west with her boyfriend at the end of the month and then having to deal with the xmas holidays just complicated even more.

We basically came up with a 2.5 hour window yesterday and all things considered it went very well.

We did a whole pile of low light candle shots followed by some studio umbrella lighting with both flash and non-flash lighting.

Candle light shots:





Umbrella lighting:





I learned a few more things that I have to remember for next time but that is all part of it.

I am always looking for more friends to take pics of so if your interested then let me know so we can set something up.

The rest of the pictures can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157611454543420/

Purge clean of the house

Well ... I hate to admit it but I am a bit of a packrat when it comes to computer stuff.

It got to the point where it was everywhere I looked.

It took me a few fews but I managed to get rid of the hoards of broken pcs, monitors, and parts that I was thinking I could you someday and never did.

The massive cleanup came down to have I seen or used that in the last five years ... nope ... gone.

This included clothes which are going to be donated ... just need to drop them off somewhere soon.

I lost count after the fourth trip of my back seat and trunkof my car being completely full.

I now have space to properly organize all my remaining stuff which will take some time but I am happy with the progress I have made.

A photo studio in the house

I had been thinking for a while now about turning the huge empty master bedroom in my house into a photo studio of some type. It was time I added another dimension into my photography realm that is so far removed from my regular sports and nature shots.

So guess what I finally did it. It might not be a professional (as I am not a pro photographer) setup but WTH it is functional.

I had the pleasure of taking some pics of my friend Ashley last sunday as my first run through to see how things would work out with the new setup. She was an absolute sweetheart as worked together to figure out lighting, etc for different possible shots.

She was very pleased with how things went and the in the final outcome.







The rest of the pictures can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157609963636675/


I still have a lit bit of tweaking to make to my setup but I am very happy so far!

Elora Gorge at 40cms

I went and paddled the Elora Gorge last last saturday with friends.

It was a whopping 40 cms which is way more the the maybe 10 cms I have paddled it in the past.

The river looked so totally different. It was fast moving and huge waves / holes.

It was a wet dreary freezing cold day. I actually had to wear my gloves and that says alot.

We only had one major swimmer during the day. We had a kayaker out of their boiat above the chutes. I ended up having to run the right hand line down the chute to try and catch up to the boat. I punched the first two holes fine and ended up getting pushed over by the last one and swimming with my boat to shore. I ended up banging my knee (which end up being pretty swollen that night) on a rock during my swim.

We did get the kayak back so that was a good thing.

The scenery on the river was amazing when we came up to this huge waterfall coming off the side of the gorge wall. I wish I had my regular camera with me but the weather was to crappy to take pictures anyway.

Everyone made it to the take out safe and sound.

I am glad I made the trip as it gave me and idea of what the Gorge was like in high water but without the ice and snow. I have determined that my cutoff point for running the Gorge will be around 50 cms.

Until next time be safe out there.

Trip to the city of Ottawa to paddle the Pumphouse and potluck dinner

I spent last weekend doing a roadtrip to the city of Ottawa with my friend Mark.

My goals were to paddle the Pumphouse slalom course and attend the CDB paddling club annual meeting and potluck dinner. Mark was along for the ride to go visit his brother.

We left Mark's place just after 6am on saturday morning and made it to Ottawa just after 12:30ish. This was a pretty good time as we only made three stops, Tims in Bancroft, Foymount for shopping, and the Antrim truck stop for brunch. We managed to briefly run into my dad and step-mom as they just finished having breakfast there. It was a what the hell are you doing here moment as it was totally random and unplanned.

I dropped Mark off at some intersection and headed over to the Pumphouse for some paddling fun. I had never been there before and was really impressed with the facility. It is a great slalom course in the downtown area of Ottawa. Some of the members of the Canadian Olympic Team were there training. I also ran into some of the Junior teamt that I know. I met up with Christian, Paul, and Stephen. We managed to get a couple hour of paddling in and then we headed over to a local pub for a drink before parting ways.

I headed over to MEC before going to Julia's house for the party. The meeting was great and so was the dinner. Here are some pictures from that night http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157608985076314/

I ended up getting voted in as Member at Large which is someone who promotes the club while out and about. The CDB website is http://www.cdb-ottawa.com/

Kelly from the club presented me with a plaqued version of a picture of me running ST-Chute on the Ottawa River. He said is was their way of giving something back to me for sharing all the pictures I take of others.

This is the original picture:

After the party I headed over to Marks brothers place before making the uneventful trip home on sunday.

Lower Madawaska and a trip to the Wilno Tavern

We met up at the at the Paddler Coop at 11:30. We decdied to run the Lower Madawaska since there was no water on the Middle Mad at MKC. It was running at about 30 cms.

What more could you ask for ... the sun was shinning, the air temperature was cool, and your out paddling with your friends in November.

We only had two swimmers during the day and beers at the takeout before heading off to the cabins to offload our gear and more beers.

Link to pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157608594838922/

So what could make the day any better but a trip to the Wilno Tavern for a late dinner and Blaine was the only Wilno virgin in the group.

Ryan had a brain lapse in judgement and offered to be the DD for the night so we piled into the kid mobile and headed off. The place was busy and we had to wait at the bar for a bit before getting a table. The drinks were definitely free flowing.

Dinner was going great and then it happened ... we met "Mike from Wilno" ... he was definitely a unique character. Ryan was the first to bail from the table to avoid the drunken conversations to stand at the bar and I wasn't too far behind him.

And that is when we met some more of the locals Syliva and Tommy. Sylvia was a throwback to the 60's and was figuring out everyones astrological signs. Tommy was a lumberjack in his little world. We were warned by the the bartender not to armwrestle Tommy as he has put more people in the hospital that way.

The night was kind of blurry for me as Ryan and Greg made sure the drinks were flowing. I lost count after two coolers, one sling, and three vodka shots. I am pretty sure Greg was in the same state of me. I do remember that the discussions were definitely lively.

Soon the night came to an end as we were the lasts one leave Wilno on a saturday night.

Has anyone else met any of the interesting characters at the Wilno?

Been busy paddling

Alot has happened over the last couple of weeks.

I spent one weekend paddling the Ottawa with Frank, Mike, Ryan, Leah, Blaine, and Kim. The weather was overcast but still relatively warm. We decided not to camp but rented one of Dale Curtis cabins right at the putin. It was better then sleeping out in the tent.

We ran the middle channel on saturday and the main on sunday. My most memorable moment and probably the most sketchiest place I have been in my boat was at leftside Coliseum. I probably spent at least five minutes in oh crap mode as I was in a recirculating eddy trying not to be sucked back into a nasty hole. I managed to pull it off and not have an out of boat experience.

Me in Right Side Horseshoe

Ryan and Frank paddling together

Pictures from that weekend are here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157607586820805/

I ended up spending the following not paddling at all. My neoghbour Bob thought I must have been sick as it was the first time I had been home on a weekend since mid-june. I had alot of yard work to catch up on plus I had to close the pool.

I just spent the last weekend paddling at the Gull River in Minden on the saturday. I managed to run the entire river for the first time ever. I put in the eddy just below the dam and decide what the heck and ran it. I only had to eddy out once to empty some water out of my boat. I also ended up running the falls three times. The weather was great and i was still wearing shorts.

I head out early sunday morning to paddle with Kevin, Miguel, and Val at the Elora Gorge. I was running kind of low but was still fun. After that I head off to Woodstock to spend Thanksgiving dinner with my friend Sarah.

We managed to spend a little bit of time doing a photo shoot before dinner.



Pictures are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157608020300268/

I met her boyfriend, brothers, and mom just before dinner. There was tons of food and lots of wine. Afterwards we played dominos for a few hours while having other drinks as the wine was long gone.

Monday morning was back to paddling at the Gorge with Geoff, Mark, Jim, and Bruce. I managed to catch the top left eddy at the chute which was a feat in itself for me.



Link to the pictures from the Gorge are here

Mine http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157608005256261/

Jim http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157608017701040/

Gauleyfest or bust

Making the long haul to Summersville, WV for the annual Gauleyfest has been on my bucket list for the last few years. Things finally fell into place and I manage to book some extra time off work in order to make it happen. What even made it better was that I managed to score a spot for a guided tour down the Lower Gauley River on saturday with some of the Jackson Kayak and WorldKayak.com team members. This was organized via Colin Kemp at www.worldkayak.com


I even managed to have my friend Frank ride shotgun as he was too young to drive. Frank emailed me a few weeks back after his contract job in advertising came to an end and he decided he needed a vacation.






The car was packed up on the wednesday night with our gear. I only managed to get a lousy four hours of sleep as my OCD kept me up thinking I forgot some I would most likely need on our journey south.


Thursday:


The only bummer with lack of sleep was that I now had to go to work for 06:30. It was a struggle to stay focussed while patiently waiting for the end of the workday to come along knowing you still had a long drive ahead of you. I also had to worry about Frank as he was still in the car sleeping for the day.


I managed to get away from work around 1pm and the roadtrip was now started with a slight detour to drop off a friends boat on the way before heading off to the border. I We made a quick stop at the duty free for a bottle of Bacardis. As always I end up picking the wrong line for US Customs. I ended up with the 50 million questions guy. I was finally able to leave after the five minute gruelling interview. The only upside of the whole conversation was that he did mention that I had a lovely sticker collection on my boat.


We managed to make it down to Grove City, PA before I started to get tired and decided to get a room for the night. I couldn't afford the extra money for a double and since Frank was recently unemployed and had no money he decided to spend the night in the car while I was snug as a bug in a nice warm bed!


Friday:


We did manage to be able to have breakfast together but I had to make sure no one saw me sharing food with him at the table.


And then we were off to the ASCI park in McHenry, MD. See http://www.adventuresportscenter.com/ for details. We managed to get there around 11am and ran into Andrew, Brian, and Cale from the Kawartha Whitewater Paddlers group. We spent the next few hours having a blast in the park. Frank somehow forgot his PFD and helmet so he had to sit on the shoreline and watch us paddle. I had a few out of boat experiences but that was part of the game. It is a totally amazing place to perfect technical eddy hopping skills and definitely worth the money. Just make sure you phone ahead to reserve a spot and find out when the water is running. There website was not totally accurate for the water relase schedule for september. I pointed it out to the lady in the office and she was totally shocked about the errors. I spent some time after paddling taking pictures of the course before we continued our journey over to Friendsville where we ran into alot of friends that had just finished running the Upper Yough river.



Luckily Frank and I were not pressed for time and only had 1.5 hours of driving left to my friends place near Lost Creek, WV. Pat and Pam treated us to snacks and gourmet chicken Hoagies made from scratch and done on the BBQ. They were totally scrumptious. We spent a few hours catching up before it was time to crash. We had to get up early in the morning to make the rest of the trip down to the meeting place near the Summersville dam.


Saturday:


We left around 05:30 which would give us ample time to get to the meeting point with a quick stop for breakfast at Mabels Truck Stop. I was hoping to get some pictures near dthe dam but it was totally fogged in. Soon people from all over were showing up. I met David and his two sons from Toronto shortly after my arrival. After that it was the JK crew starting with Wesley, Jim, Chris, Clay. We were split into our respective groups while waiting for some of the Jacksons to show up as they were running a little late. We ended up leaving without them in order to get the shuttle sorted out. We had two groups running the Lower Gauley that day and I was in one of them.




We finally make it to the put in road and stopped in the middle of nowhere which kind of freaked me out a bit. I looked over the side of the car and all I saw was a really steep hill full of trees and I am thinking holy crap I got to get my boat down that! It was then I was pointed to this trail which ultimately led down the river via some very steep sketchy wooden steps. I took my boat to the bottom and left it just before the last set of steps and headed back to the car to finish running shuttle to the takeout. I ran into a Don and Jo Beyer who I had met at Nationals back in July. They lived only an hour away and emailed me last week to se if I was coming down to paddle. We made arrangements to meet on sunday to go boating together.


Emily and EJ finally had made it to the putin while the shuttling of the vehicles was going on. It was great to see them again and catch up with Emily as I had not seen her since she had headed off to the World Cup in Europe about two months back.


And then ... finally ... it was boating time. Jim was the lead guide in our group and knew the river well. He would always tell us the preferred lines and what all the hazards were. Koontz Flume was a blast. I ran it down the left and then headed over to 5 Boat Hole for some surfing fun. I managed to get a front surf in on my first ride followed by an excellent side and back surf on my final ride. My boat was basically vertical and full of water but I managed to get out before making my way side surfing in two other spots on my way over to the other side of the river before emptying out. Oh ... I think I forgot to mention that I was the only open boat in the motly crew of kayakers.


At some point in time Dave managed to break half his blade off one side of his paddle. He was pretty upset about this as he just got it back from the manufacture from being broken before. Luckily he had a break down paddled as he would have been severely screw as we were only about a quarter down the river. I ended up carrying the broken paddle in my boat for the rest of the trip.


The rest of the day was a blast. Some of it was just fast flowing "boogey water" and other parts of it were very technical for me as I had to eddy hop around stuff in order not to fill up my boat or hit any of the big freakin rocks in the river. My most memorable moments were running Upper / Lower Mash.


My only out of boat experience came at the last big rapid known as Pure Screaming Hell. I somehow ended up out of my boat above the pour over. I was holding onto it as a extra PFD as I knew the hole was coming up quick. Everyone on shore was screaming swim left but the hole looked fine to me. The two off us went in and I held onto the boat waiting for the pull down followed by push up before letting go. My boat decided to side surf the hole for a bit as I was looking up river during my swim. Some girl threw me a line and I grabbed it only for her to let go as she soon realized that I would have pulled her into the river. Chris had an oh crap moment when he came over the lip of the pour over as he did not realize my boat was there. He ended up penciling straight in and submarine under it while it stayed there for a little bit longer before it decided it was done and came out. The swim wasn't that bad as I have had worse on the Ottawa.


The paddling day was soon over. I gave Emily, EJ, and I think Chris a ride back to the festival site. I had only just parked my car when I heard my name yelled out across the field. It was my friend Bill from Charlotte, NC that I had not seen in a while. I ended up camping near him as I had no clue where the other Canadians were as the place was packed. I managed to get dinner at the Jackson RV complete with wobbly pops in a can. I spent the rest of the evening looking thru the vendor booths. There were great prices for anything from boats to t-shirts with a large smattering of free beer.


I also did my duty and became a American Whitewater member. I was quite surprised in to find a beer ticket in the AW swag bag. I was also really surprised to find a copy of the latest magazine which included one of my pictures of Eli that I had taken at ALF 2008 complete with photo credit. I have finally been published for my second time this year as the first time was in a UK Paddling magazine. I was surprised as to how many people I knew at the festival. It was a great evening. I was getting pretty tired either due to sever lack of sleep or the eight beer I had or a combination of both but ended up going to bed early.


Sunday:


I was up early and headed over to Mabels for another great breakfast. I met Jo and Don at the New River Gorge info centre on the highway. We did the shuttle and hit the river.




Todays river would be the New River Gorge http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_2418_


The only downside was the water was running low but on the upside there was no one else on the river and it was hot and the water was warm.


The low water made the features fun and technical. Don explained the preferred line for each set. They took their lines while I made my own ones. I spent lots of time practicing eddy hopping around rocks, ledges, etc. It was a total blast. They were paddling the same boat as me but in tandem configuration.


At one point Jo said it was so nice to watch me paddle as I actually taking the time to catch the eddies and stuff which was different from their regular crew who only ran the same lines with no deviations. I was making some pretty tight eddies and told them they should start doing the same.


We had a great lunch spot along the way at Lower Keeney where I managed to get out and take some pictures. The rest of the day was spent trying to find new lines where possible. We also managed to find a few surf spots as well.


We finished up around 5:30ish and said our goodbyes but not before discussing the possibility of coming back down next season for fours days of paddling together. I just cant wait until next year as it is absolutely gorgeous paddling in West Virginia.


I made the 1.5 hour trek back to Pat’s place as I had to go back their to crash for the night and pick up the rest of my gear that I stored there for safe keeping.


Monday:


Frank and I left early to make our trek back home. We made a few stops along the way for pictures including the American side of Niagara Falls.


I spent the night at my friends in Toronto to catch up on life before having to go back to work Tuesday morning.

Tandem open boating at Palmer Rapids

I spent last weekend at Palmer Rapids having a blast introducing my friend Sarah to white water canoeing.

Which way to the river?



I met her coincidentally at Palmer rapids last spring when she was paddling a kayak with the McMaster White Water club.

Our idea of a trip came up a few weeks ago when we were randoming chatting online and she mentioned whe would like to try open boating next summer. I said why wait until next summer and I think her response was "Dude, are you serious" and I said sure why not.

The only problem was trying to find a weekend when we were both free and getting a tandem boat. The date was set and Ryan's boat magically made its way from North Bay to Orillia with the help of a mutual friend Mike who just happened to be going up there for a visit.

So the plan was to to camp at the Paddler Coop but that is when things got better. Blaine and Kim were going up to the cabins and offered us the use of one of the extras. This was pretty sweet as this would be the first time I went paddling for an entire weekend and was not sleeping in a tent and considering it was supposed to rain all weekend.

I left work on friday afternoon and stopped in Norwood to visit Cale and Steph for a couple hours as I had some time to kill before going up to the cabins. I finally made it up there around 11pm and met Kim and Blaine around the fire. Sarah managed to show up some time after midnight as she was coming all the way from Woodstock. I was pretty tired and went to bed.

Saturday:

I made sausages and eggs for breakfast and got the boat ready for paddling. We headed off to Palmer Rapids for a day of fun on the river. It was overcast but fairly warm and that was better than rain. We spent a few hours going over the basics below Jessups chute and then we took a couple of runs thru the chute.

We took on lots of water and were basically full but we were able to handle the boat easily enough. We even took a couple of ferries back and forth just to see how it would be and we managed to do it with no swims.

And then it was time for the lower set where we spent lots of time catching eddies, ferrying, attaining backup river, and basically having lots of fun all around. We had a total blast surfing the boat on the wave at the bottom of the lower set quite a few times before packing it in and heading back to the cabins for dinner.

Dinner was pasta and garlic bread which we ate out on the deck down by the water. Later on dessert was Costco pumpkin pie while there were drinks all around the campfire. Time flew by and it was count sheep time.

Sunday:

After breakfast it was time to clean up the cabin and pack up our extra gear before heading off to the river for another day of fun.

Sarah and I did the same warm up at Jessups before we decided to run the chute. We ended up swimming on the 1st run when we hit a submerged rock. We were laughing our faces off. We emptied out the boat and got back in and paddled back up to the bottom of the chute for more fun. Our second run was fine.

After that it was the lower set (which included a short swim) followed by a couple of hours of surfing at the wave of the bottom set. We also managed to jump into another longer tandem boat for a bit to check out how it handled. Sarah even took Ryan's boat for quite a few solo runs. I think she is hooked.



After that we packed up before it poured rain to head back to the cabins to pick up our stuff and begin the journey back home.

Here is a link to the pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157607313572067/

All over the place ... what else is new

Well ... its been a busy couple of weeks since I last posted.

I spent couple weekends back taking pictures of some of my friends competing in the Canada Cup rodeo on the Ottawa River on the saturday.

Link to pictures here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157607068308574/

There was a bit of a party saturday night with some of my other paddling friends from all over the place that were up for the weekend.

I managed to spend the Sunday paddling with Terry, Karen, Neil, and Gill before heading off to the Gull River to practice for a slalom race.

Link to pictures are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157607059383806/

I spent last weekend taking pictures at the 2008 Annual Gull River Canoe Slalom Race.

I competed in the regular Mens Solo race and came dead last. I had to pay off my bet of camping fees to Greg as I was hopin to kick his ass but it didn't happen.

It was great to see old friends and meet a couple of new ones.

Yes ... I met some new people ... I don't know everyone yet.

Here are is the link to the pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157607197782450/

Roadtrip to the Minden via Watertown, NY

Yeah ... I know the title seems a bit misleading but Minden was my ultimate destination via a small slight detour.

I was initially supposed to go paddling with my McMaster University White Water club on the weekend but I also was asked by some of the junior freestyle team to come down to Watertown, NY to take pictures at the Black River Whitewater Challenge.

It was a tough decision which might have ended up in me disappointing friends either way.

So after some deep meditation (yeah right) I came up with a plan that would meet the needs of everyone. It involved going to both events.

I left work friday afternoon and headed off to Kingston. I stayed with Bob and Liz that night. I also managed to go visit Alex at his new place which coincidentally happen to be less than 5 minutes from where I was staying. I scared the crap out of Alex on his front lawn when I yelled at him. It basically came down to a holy crap WTF are you doing here moment.


I told Alex I was going down to Watertown for the event and we decided we were going to travel together. I picked up him early saturday morning at 10am and we headed off to the border with two shiny brand new kayaks on my car ... no none of them were mine. After an easy crossing thru US customs we we in Watertown before noon.

The even was initially supposed to be held at the Route 3 Wave but it was flooded out and the organizers were going to use Holes Borthers as the backup. The Keeners arrived at the same time we did. Alex grabbed his gear and headed right down to the river to get some practice rides in.



I spent some time catching up with some of the Keeners and the OKS staff. I also ran into Josh and Devyn. Devyn was just recently sponsored by Riot Kayaks with some help from me and he want some pictures taken with his new shiny boat. Here is Devyn's boat in a reflection shot from Josh's glasses.



The only problem with taking pictures was how to get down to the shore line as the banks were steep and the easy access was blocked off by the city due to construction. I ended up getting dressed in my paddling gear and walked down an open area that was not blocked off or posted with no trespassing signs. I ended up having to walk up the eddy line in the river to get to the spot I wanted to take pictures from.

I spent the rest of the day taking pictures of the competition while taking some time out to talk to some of the parents I knew from previous events. As usual the competition started late and ran over for time so some of the competitors (including Alex) would have to come back on the sunday. I went back up to my car to change and pack up my gear while Alex got a few more rides in while his mom was watching.

Link to pictures from saturday are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157606962259080/

I left around 7pm with the boats on my car and no Alex. He was going back with his mom. I told him I would drop the boats off in Kingston before continuing my journey. I had the customs guy from hell. It must have been the bring every extra customs guy to that particular border crossing nigh and rip cars apart for something to do. After being grilled for about five minutes I was on my way.

I managed to drop the boats of in Kingston and be at the campfire for beers in Minden just after midnight. Not bad considering I had to have a 20 minute catnap along the way. Things started to die down around 2am and there was no way I felt like setting up my tent. I was just about to crash on a picnic table in my sleeping bag when I found another place to sleep. It was the roof covered playground equipment. It turns out there is enough room for two complete with roll bars so you don't fall out.

I finally got out of my sleep bag around 9am sunday morning and it apparently rained during the night so the picnic table might have been a bad first choice. After a quick breakfast we all headed down to the river where I spent some time taking pictures and going for swmims in the river. I decided I needed a weekend of no paddling and was quite content with floating around being quite relaxing.

Link to pictures for sunday are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157606956444047/


After that it was some good byes before heading home.

Life at Palmer Rapids

Well ... I don't know where to start but here goes.

Ryan asked me over a month ago if I would have any free time in my busy schedule to paddle with him and his friend Markham Mike. The only catch was I would have to paddle tandem canoe with Mike and he had never done it before.

For some reason I said yes ... could it have been the impending 6 pack of coolers on ice that would eventually make it my way ... possibly so.

I ended up getting to the Paddler Coop around 5:30pm on friday night. I was sitting out in from of the local general store contemplating getting some ice but I could not see the building considering it was 5 feet in front of me due to the frickin rain. This would be just the beginning of the crappy weather for the night. I had to endure another four rain storms during the 45 minute period I was setting up my tarp and tent.

So what was I to do for the night considering I was the only camper in the whole place and all alone waiting for Ryan and Mike to show up at some late hour. I ended up crashing a local house party until 9:30ish and then crashed in my tent for a bit until I heard Ryan shuffling around in the dark about an hour later.

Someone who resembled a person I used to paddle with before he quit his day job and decided to teach paddling also showed up ... some guy name Neil. Well he is not all that bad as between the two of us with the help of some naptha we got the fire going and had a few drinks before Markham Mike showed up. I finally could not stay awake as I had been up at 04:30 and worked a full day and finally crashed around 1:30ish.

Mike made us breakfast saturday morning. Blaine showed up at I don't know what time to come paddling with us and he went to set up his tent and crap while we finished up the dishes and got our paddling gear ready. We finally got on the river around 11ish.

I must say it was different paddling tandem. I was in the stern of Ryans tandem boat and poor Mike was in the front. We did some basic strokes before heading off to the current to practice ferries and s-turns. Thing were great as we had no swims. We decided to finish the day early just before 3pm by running the lower set. Mike and I took our time as we were practicing eddy hopping and ferry all the way down.

The plan for the rest of the afternoon was to pack all the boats in Blaines truck, head off to Foymount for shopping, meet Neil at the icecream truck in Quadville once he was done teaching and run the Lower Mad before dark.

turn Colin's car into a storage faciltity - check
load paddling gear into Blaines truck - check
stop to get beer, coolers, and ice - check
Mike and Ryan make lunch sandwiches on the way to Foymount to feed the starving gang - check
Drop 700 bucks between the 4 of us - check
Get an icecream cone - check
Meet Neil at 5pm - check

So we finally put on the river at 6pm and guess we maybe have 2.5 hours max of daylight. We just almost make it Hass Hole when this fishing boat is going the other way with two paddlers in it. Blaine ran first and did fine. Mike and I tried to catch the eddy on the right but ended up swimming when we hit the shallow rrocks and stuff. Neil and Ryan finally caught up to us after and explained that the paddlers in the boat had an accident as the guy blew out his shoulder. Bummer for him but good for us. They were going to take neils vehicle from the putin to the takeout in order to get their vehicle. One less shuttle for us to do at the end of the day.

We stated boogying down the river. We were having lots of fun on the way down. Mike and I only had two more out of boat experiences. One of them happened to be at Canoe Opener on the second last set. I though we were already past it when I saw this dark shadow coming real close and had a holy crap moment and titled the boat left and just barely missed putting a hole in Ryans newly outfitted tandem boat.

We got to the takeout about 8:30. We still had enough light to walk up that frickin long hill to the parking lot. We put the gear down, changed, and had a few drinks while contemplating what we wer going to do with all the boats. We basically said WTF and shoved everything into the back of Blaines truck ... three open boats and a kayak ... the tandem hung out about 6 feet or so but we but one of those safety vests on it as a flag.

We headed back to the Coop for another round of drinks and a very late dinner of burgers, salad, chilli and more drinks before heading down to the fire for more drinks.

Sunday morning came real early. We headed over to the local restaurant for breakfast before heading off to the river for some more fun. This time everyone was paddling solo as we borrowed an extra boat from Neil. I spent some time thru-out the day taking some pics of the Coop OC and Kayak courses while getting in some of my own fun on the river.

We packed it in around 1pm and I was home back in around 5:30.

I had a fun weekend and the weather managed to acutall be nice for paddling on sat/sun.

Life has been busy

It has been a while since my last post.

I have been spending all of my free time paddling on the Ottawa River.

I spent the beginning of an 11 day paddling roadtrip including my birthday over at the National Slalom Races at the Gull River and took about 3000 pics in three days. I still need to sort through them be I post them up.

I also managed to take another thing off my paddling list. I ran Horseshoe Falls on the Gull for the first time ever. It was a pretty quick ride.

I have just finished paddling five runs on the Middle Channel of the Ottawa over the last four days and am taking a day off to relax at my dads place before heading of to BeastFeast with the CDB Crew.

Ottawa River

Friday:

I met up with the Keener group on friday morning and told them I would be meeting them later on to take pictures of their weekly competition. The weather was very grey and humid which would make the photo job really hard.

I had a bit of running around to before putting finally putting on the river at 10:30. I booted it down to the gauge and it was +10. I stopped to check out Little Trickle and decided there was enough flow and ran it clean. I made it to the top wave at Upper No Name is just under an hour from the top which is a record for me.

I tried to drop in on the wave for a side surf but was windowshaded pretty quickly due to too much upstream lean.

The Keeners were doing some practice rides and getting ready for the competition. It took a while to getting the shutter speed, etc right as it was getting darker with the impending storm. I managed to get quite a few great shots of the kids paddling throughout the day.

After lunch and the final runoff we headed down river. I had a swim in Vampire when I was making my run. Little Dane Jackson was bopping around on the second wave and I ended up having to go right into Vampire to avoid running him over.

Other than the couple of swims it was a great day on the river. By the end of the day the level was down to 8.25.

Saturday:

Pat and I put on the river around 08:30 and headed of to Little Trickle. The was even less water at around 9.25 on the gauge. I ran it first clean and then Pat did it.

After that we spent at least an hour by ourselve at Angels Kiss before the first raft showed up. I managed to get some epic side surfs on Angels Kiss.

We ran into Jim and the Esprit gang and headed over to Butterfly. I managed a really good side and back surf at Center Butterfly and a bit of surfing on Leftside Butterfly. After that we headed down river and had lunch with Esprit at their spot on Lower No Name (thanks Jim).

Pat and I were off the river by 1pm. We managed to get more surfing in by paddling early than what would have taken the whole weekend with other paddlers there.

After that I spent some time visiting friends and actually ended up showing one of them how to install a new toilet step-by-step.

After that it was an evening of socializing with other friends at WT.

Sunday:

Met up with some of the CDB crew for another run down the middle. The level was 8.5. I was still able to run Little Trickle clean. I managed to get some side surfing in on Angels Kiss plus a few out of boat experiences.

After that it was back surfing up a storm at the top river left hole of Leftside Butterfly. I had a couple of swims but did not care as the surfing was epic until my last ride. That is when my foam saddle ripped out of my boat.

I am now thinking OH crap I still have Upper / Lower No Name to run old school. I deflated my front airbag and shove the saddle under it re-inflating the bag to hold it in. I headed down river with Eric and he helped me carry my boat around Garvins.

Upper no Name was an easy run. I took the left catch eddy, reun the ledge catch eddy, move right and run the rest of the center line after passing the line accross from Vampire.
It was a farely dry run and I didn't swim so i was happy with that.

Ottawa River - Paddling with the Pros Weekend

Friday:

I stopped by Matt Troutman’s place in the Burg on Friday afternoon and asked him if he thought anyone would be paddling at Bussy. His answer was yep and the next thing that came out of his mouth was “By Mom” and all his gear was on the top of my car.

We headed over to the river and paddled across to the island. I spent the next couple of hours taking pictures of him, Sam Ewing, Dave Crerar, Stephen Wright, Megan Harpham, Rafas Mexican Buddies, and Jen the photo girl from WT. I still can’t figure out why people want to paddle that thing and get bounced around like a cork but they all had smiles on their faces so I guess it was worth it to them. It was also pretty funny to watch the rafts get totally folded in half.

Soon it was time to leave as we knew the Keeners would be over shortly and the lineup for the tow rope would be huge. We headed back across to the lunch spot and that is when I said hi to Nick, Joel, Rafa, and the keeners.

We ran into Harold Cox and Lisa in the parking lot. He is the manager for the Canadian Freestyle team. I was totally surprised to see him as he had one hell of a drive coming all the way from New Brunswick. After that we headed back to Matt’s place for dinner. I spent about an hour offloading my Bussy pictures and gave Matt his.

I headed over to WT to check in for what I figured would be an entertaining weekend to say the least as I knew there would be at least 30 people for sure. We had a brief meeting with Ryan as to what the schedule would be for Saturday / Sunday before departing ways to setup tents and have a few drinks before crashing for the night.

Saturday:

After breakfast we had another meeting. The group is now at 40 plus 15 of the Canadian Team. Imagine 53 kayakers, 1 C1, and me the token open boater. This was going to be a pretty cool run down the river.

Everyone started loading up their gear onto the huge kayak trailer. Billy was pretty adamant that my boat was not going on that trailer as it was for kayaks. It was the standard Billy / Colin love / hate / poke fun at relationship at its best. Billy won and my boat ended up being shuttled on Harolds truck even though there was room.

We finally made it to the WT putin where it was soon a sea of plastic boats. The weather was starting to crap out on us which would be lousy for pictures but at least we were paddling so no one really cared. I spent some time floating around taking pictures why things were being organized. Soon everyone was broken off into smaller groups and then there was me “open boater party of 1” who floated from group to group.

Nick Troutman came over and decided to grab the front end of my boat and started to do front loops over my boat. It was pretty cool to see. I was hoping to take some pictures but I had the camera put away just incase I ended up going over. Billy decided to come up and start flossing his teeth with my painter line on the front of my boat.

It was great to see the high end paddlers like Billy, Carly, and Nick take the people with less paddling experience down the river.

After a quick warm up we headed over to McKoys. The level was about 14.5 and is the highest I have ever paddled it. We were all going to run the Middle Channel. A lot of people decided to scout this one including me. On my way back up I started to get those butterfly feelings in my stomach and almost heaved. I was pretty nervous to say the least. I started my run down and headed towards Phils. I know there were quite a few of the CDB crew on the sidelines watch my run and I styled it no problem at all. Guillaume said I had a really great line and good boat control as I went through it. I was just happy I didn’t swim. We all walked back up for a group photo before heading down river.

Soon we were coming up to Iron Ring. Pat Camblin ran it in his creeker as some of the gang watched. There was no way I was running that and headed over to scout Little Trickle for a bit as I had never run it before. I asked Guillaume if he thought there was enough water there for me to run it and we agreed there was. I hopped into my boat and started heading down and that is when Katie asked me if I was actually going to run it as I was shaking my head yes. She seemed a bit surprised when I talked to her later that I actually ran it in my boat and I ran it clean with a great line. I took on a bit of water but that was expected and I only had to do a strong low brace at the bottom before making the 90 on the turn before doing the next small drop. I was very happy to say the least!

I tried to catch Angels Kiss on the fly but that ended up in a swim. I tried to surf it a few more times and that also ended up in swims and that is when I decided to get out and take some more pictures before heading down river for a late lunch and some surfing at the bottom channel beside the lunch spot.

Next up was Upper No Name which had a surf spot at the top that I did not bother to try followed by a big wave train. Soon we were at my arch nemesis on the river known as Lower No Name. I hate this rapid as I normally end up getting trashed followed by a long swim. Last season I was 19 for 23 making it thru Phils Hole and probably 12 for 15 swimming Lower No Name. I did not bother getting out to scout it as it would just probably end up freaking me out. I just headed down river for my run. I got to the first wave and went holy crap as about six feet of my boat was probably in the air when I looked forward and seen that another two big waves were still to come. To my surprise I styled it with ease and I was happy that I did not swim. I headed over to shore and started walking up to Big Smoothie to take pictures. Carly Harris was apparently in the eddy when I made my run and she said I did great and had good boat control and this made me happy.

I spent some time of people surfing on Big Smoothie. It was a huge fast wave. There was no way I was getting on that. After that we headed off to the takeout.

I noticed at the takeout that Josh was trying to sneak up on Pikey to make him swim out of his boat. I tried to swim out to him but he started to paddle away. That is when I asked someone for their kayak and paddle and headed out to get him but with using a skirt. I finally caught up to him and grabbed him by his PFD. After a few rolling sessions with me using him as a brace to get back up we came to a dead heat as I could not figure out how to undo his outfitting and he was very tight in his boat. We finally agreed to let go of each other but no I had another problem to contend with as I was about 80 feet from shore and had a boat literally full of water and was paddling it. Soon I was upside down and I wondered if I could actually roll it back up. It took a few times but to mine and the crowds amazement I was back up. I think everyone was pretty surprised that A. I was in a kayak and B. I managed to roll it up full of water. I finally made it back to shore.

Soon it was time to pack up and load the trailers. To Billy’s dismay I finally got my boat on the kayak trailer but it had to be the other one!

Saturday night was sure to be interesting as it was an 80’s night theme party. Not that I had an outfit or anything. The pre-party drinking started in the parking lot. We were waiting for Pat and Steph to crab their car as we were going to drive over and see what Bussy was doing. I spent some time taking pics of Carine and Paul walking on the fence posts. Josh managed to jump over the garbage can which was pretty cool to see.

Pat and Steph were taking for ever and that is when we walked back to where there car was. They found out they could not start their car. It turned out the security system had cut off the ignition system. We spent some time trying various combinations of stuff when I had a brilliant idea and Pat and I went and searched on the internet. Of course during this time the drinking continued. I asked Carine if she want a drink and tried my Nalgene Cooler and showed her where the bar was. We had a couple of options to try and headed back. I disconnected the battery and cleaned off the terminals and waited for twenty minutes but that did not seem to help. We looked for the infamous valet button under the dash but could not find it (Steph found it a couple days later when they had problems at Champlain Bridge).

After a no go we headed back to the main building for some snacks, pool, and partying. Yeah we were kind of lame not being in the 80’s theme but I went over a few times to see how it was going. It was pretty frickin crazy in there for sure. I think I finally went to bed around midnight. I think the party ended sometime round 2:30ish as that is when people were starting to head back to our campground. It was pretty funny when I heard “There are people camping over here in tents … why would people actually want to do that”. City folk you gotta love them.

Sunday:

I woke up with a killer headache thanks to Carine. It turned out the Nalgene Coolers that went down so smooth were pretty strong. I realized that after most of the 40 ouncer was gone and she was the one who took over the bar duties. I am pretty sure there were quite a few paddlers in our group feeling worse than me.

It was pretty much a repeat of Saturday with a few exceptions.

I almost caught Angels Kiss on the fly and managed to get somewhat of a few surfs on it.

I got a couple of half ass surfs at Butterfly as well. I managed to get wedged under a raft when I was trying to go up the line to surf left side and that is when a guide your own raft decided to peel out on top of me.

At the lunch spot Brendan asked if he could try my boat out as he had never been in a canoe before. I said sure and that is when I hopped into a kayak. We both headed down the river to the surf waves. He did great and I got trashed at the last wave and could not roll back up.

On the flat water paddle back to the takeout it was pick on the open boater by the juniors. They saw me paddling my boat standing up and tried to catch up to me to make me swim. I got back down on my knees and strapped into my boat pretty tight. The game was one. Josh and Matt tried to tip my boat every which way to make me swim but no go. I finally popped Matt skirt and that I when Josh decided to try and make him swim. Soon Matt was in behind me in my boat and was going from side to side trying to tip it. He then decided to stand up and try it again and that is when it was all over and I was in the water.

It was an excellent two days of paddling on the river with old friends and new ones. I had a blast and definitely picked up some great tips.

In case your wondering at the end of the day Pat and Steph car decided to start.

Oh I forgot to mention that there were a group of girls that only had about 4 or 5 hours ever in a kayak and they managed to run the river with the help of all the great instructors we had.

The pics can be found here except for the people I don't know they are yet http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157605946832515/

Until next time be safe out there.

Palmer Rapids / Hass Hole

Well this was an excellent weekend. I could have went paddling with friends at three different places in order of being asked:

Palmer Rapids with the McMaster Whitewater Crew
Valleyfield, QC for the Cornwall CReW rodeo - important note next rodeo is 27-Sep-2008 same place
Ottawa River, The Burg with my son and friends (last minute notice of course)

The McMaster Crew won out as some of them missed me (or my camera skills) and asked me to come paddle / party with them at least over a month or so ago and I really hate changing plans at the last minute.

I arrived at the Paddler-Coop around 4:30ish. I talked to Sasha for a bit and thats when I found out that Alex and the huge Serbian crew where showing up for paddling and a huge pigfest / party like last year.

I then headed down to the river and thinking sweet no one here and I can pick the prime spot only to find a single tent on it. This is when I met Adrian who was an open boater taking a kayaking course. Not sure why anyone would be doing that but apparently his girlfriend is a kayaker and he was being whipped into submission whether he liked it or not.

I staked out a spot for Ryan and myself as he was coming down later in the evening as he could only get a get out of jail free paddling card for saturday / sunday. I had dinner and hang out with Vladimir and gang partaked in a few rum and cokes to pass the time away when this stranger came up to me and said "Hey Bud". It was my long lost paddle buddy Neil. It turnd out he was teaching a course with Jeff this weekend. By the time he had his tent up Ryan showed up and did his thing and then we partook in a few more beverages before heading over to Jessups to track down the MAC Crew for Ryan and I and Jeff for Neil. Neil was the designated DD for the night as I was already in no shape to drive anywhere.

I hung around Jeff's gang for a bit before heading out to find the MAC crew and that is when I got all my where the hell have you been hugs and we had a few more drinks before heading back to the Coop. It didn't take long for me to crash as I had some wicked tent spins. 7am sure came pretty fast and I got up to make sausages, eggs, and toast for breaky. We had to kick Alex's butt out of bed to feed him before he was teaching for the day.

Ryan and I headed over to Jessup's around 9am to go paddling. The MAC crew wasn't even on the water yet. We basically had the river to ourselves as the other paddling groups were starting to do their flatwater training. Piano rock was just under water and the river was zooming around 155ish CMS. It was definitely fun and interesting for surfing and running the chutes. I managed to get out every no and then to take pictures but the lighting sucked and with the higher water it made it difficult to get in close. Ryan was having fun as he managed to get his side surfing down in his Outrage. He also spent some time in my battleship and the Nitro (which we have determined is a very wet boat and not for me or Ryan).

Blaine showed up a little while later with his daughter Payton. She was busy scurring along the shore taking pictures of rocks, trees, bugs, etc while her dad was paddling. I asked her if she wanted to go paddling with me in their tandem boat. After some gentle coaxing she said sure but I did not tell her what she was in for. We hopped in their boat and paddled out to do a jet ferry to the other side. After the screams Blaine was laughing and surprised that we were paddling together. Its been at least 5 or 6 years since I was in a tandem boat and she was soon to be a victim of getting wet followed by more screams as we were side surfing in the wave and the boat was filling up with water. I also took her up closer and closer to the wave at the bottom of the shoots. I do remember her saying "I hate you" blah blah blah but what else is new ... heard it all before. She kept trieng to steer the boat to shore and I kept taking it further into the big stuff. I think we only had one swim the entire time and that is when we finished up.

After that I hopped back into my boat for some more fun. Sometime during the day I managed to take out a few kayakers in the MAC crew when ferrying to the other side or surfing on the wave beside them. Seems a big boat scare the crap out of people. Ryan was kneeling in Blaines Burn and trying to do the C1 thing without outfitting. He was amazingly pretty good at it. After that we went back to the Coop for a late lunch before a whole bunch of us headed over to Hass Hole for a few ours of paddling. Mr and Mrs Hass came down for a ride on their ATV. I went up to say hi and asked them if they were on a date. They laughed and watched us paddle for a while.

Everyone pretty much had a total blast as it was only us on the river. I managed to consistently get great rides on the 1st wave and was totally happy with that. Daryll almost got munched one time when I blew my angle on my ferry and everyone sad Alex screamed like a little girl when he saw me getting close. Later on we both managed to get on the same wave together but with some distance. I was worried that if I slid into a side surf I would have munched him for sure. Ryan managed to take over the camera duties at the end and got some shots of me. Thanks buddy.

After the paddling session we head back to camp. I was supposed to cook dinner but Vladimir and gang had slow roasted a pig on a spit and the food and drinks were on. After that we headed over to party with the MAC Crew but they were dropping off like dead flies. Pretty sad when the older generation outlast the university kids!

I think it was sometime after midight when we got back to camp to crash for the night. I am pretty sure when the thunderstorm and pelting rain started a few hours later everyone when crap my stuff is getting wet! We got up around 7am and packed up camp. We decided the night before to go to the Panckae House for breakfast before heading back to Hass Hole. It rained off an on until we finished breakfast and then the sky was blue and the sun was shining.

We saw Val Popov out on the river when we got their and a short time late Meghan showed up. I did my normal camera routine. Meghan was just ripping it up with spins, front, side, and back surfs. Her mom asked if I could email here my best pick of Meghan. I told here she would be able download them all later on and was very happy with that. I told Meghan she had a pretty smile (she said thanks) before she headed down river with her mom and the rest of their gang.

The rest of us started paddling having lots of fun. I managed to get quite a few epic front / side surfs going on the 1st wave. I also managed to a few back surfs going and was almost vertical on some of them. I had to recover by throwing all my body weight forward and digging in to save my self. I must admit I did have a few swims in the afternoon as I was getting pretty tired. Blaine hopped into my battleship and actually admitted he like paddling it. After all he is an open boater first and kayaker second.

Other groups came and gone throughout the day. We finally packed it in close to 2:30 as we were all wiped. We said goodbye to Kate, Daryll, Blaine and Payton. Payton agreed that we would paddle together again next time we met and I am going to hold here to that. Ryan and I had a quick lunch before heading off and that is when it started pouring. Glad we wern't paddling in that.

All in all I had an excellent time. The weather was great during paddling time and held off for partying / campfire time.

Until next time be safe out there!

Link to the pictures:

McMaster Crew http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157605780805632/

Palmer Saturday http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157605779649004/

Hass Hole Saturday http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157605784317571/

Hass Hole Sunday http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157605758814726/

20080614 Palmer Rapids

So here goes the trip report without pictures as I have not had time to go through them.

The weather was great and the bugs were buggy. The blackflies sure grew alot in a month.

I managed to get up to the Paddlers Coop around noon and dropped off the Timbits in the office. I was surprised to see Wayne, Dave, and son from Pembroke way pull in the parking lot the same time I did. They saw the post and decided to come out and play.

I headed over to the access point on Dam road and offloaded the boat.

I got the airbags out and installed them into the battle ship and thats where I think the signs of bad things to come started. I am not sure how but the little blue twisty cap on the end of the tube for blowing up one of my air bags was missing. I managed to borrow one off of Waynes old one (still need to give you that back). I blew up both the airbags and got changed to only find my front air bag was leaking bad. I thought I fixed the small leak to only find out that the tube on it had separated from the inside of the bag and I did not have any goop with me. I duct taped it the best I could and crossed my fingers. (glad I was not on the Ottawa).

I finally got on the river basically spent the day playing up at the chutes at Jessups working on eddies, surfing, cross-forward strokes (Perrett was surprised). I also managed to hop out from time to time to take pics of the folks I met that day.

I decided to finally take a run down the river at the end of the day. I was catching eddies no problem at all. Then came the hole at the bottom. I decided to go to the right of it as I really did not feel like getting wet. I went to the right of the hole and it looked like there was ample water flow. Well I guess I was wrong as I came to an immediate full stop with a loud CRUNCH noise after I found the small ledge. The front of my boat is crushed and the royalex is split in a couple of pieces. I paddled to the shoreline and hauled my boat up to the car.

I am now thinking I am heading back home but I had an offer from Steve Tripp to borrow one of his boats on sunday.

I spent the rest of the night sulking and taking pictures of Dave and Alex and one of the students at Hass Hole. The wave was supreme and all I could think about was I should be out there paddling with them but could not.

I spent sunday staying at Jessups as I did not want to break someone elses boat. I did it old school in a 16 foot prospector with no thigh straps, sdalle, knee pads, or floatation. It was a blast. I was still able to make the same moves. I also managed to try a few other boats that day in old school mode as well. I was pretty much beat by noon and had lunch with Steve and his family before heading off home.

I will be fixing my boat and airbags this week before heading back to Palmer this weekend with the McMaster crew.

I passed my exam ... now I get to go paddling again!

Well after three grueling 14 hour days of non-stop studying I decided WTF and scheduled my exam (costs 150 bucks) for noon friday 13th June. Maybe this would be my lucky day.

I managed to sleep in until 8am which is huge for me.

Had some toast for breaky and skimmed over my study notes and headed over early for my exam.

Luckily I did the construction sucked and some asswipe almost forced me into the ditch when a frickin scquirrel ran across the road. Rule 1 is run it over if lower than your bumper.

The test center logged me in for my exam ... 55 questions in 90 minutes and I had to get 804 point to pass. Things were going well until I got to question 4 where the computer simulation was not working correcly. I put a comment in the comment section and called the test facilitaor over. They were not sure what to do and after 10 minutes I had to say screw it and continue on as the clock was ticking and I now had 70 minutes left. At least I could get a free techinal re-write if I had failed by missing that question.

I did the other 51 questions in 35 minutes including two quite intensive simulations that worked fine. I had a good feeling by the end of the exam and I figured I had passed with flying colours.

I did pass but was disappointed with my score. I managed to only get 1000 out of a possible 1000 points! This would be the first time I ever got a 100 percent on a Cisco network exam.

I am frickin happy. I met my friend Mark and some of his friends at Jask Astors for lunch before heading home to cut the grass and pack up my paddling gear.

I can now relax a bit and get back into my boat as I have not paddled as much as I have wanted to this spring.

Life, Funeral, and mini Vacation

Well ... it's been really busy the last couple of weeks.

I had a really busy two weeks at work when I found out my Grandma Vicki had died out west in BC.

With the stress of work and a upcoming exam followed by that I decided to make my trip out west into a mini vacation on the back end after the funeral. I figured I needed some time to decompress and re-evaluate life.

On the thursday of my flight out west I was working my butt off at work in downtown Toronto all day up until 3pm and then I had to get over to my office and drop off some gear, get changed, have dinner, and catch my 8pm flight.

The flight was ok except that I could not watch TV or anything as the first 6 rows I was sitting in had busted screens. I ended up doing Suduko puzzles for 4 hours. The guy behind me was trying to keep up with how fast I was doing them as he could not figure out how I was doing them like that. I finally got to my aunt and uncles place in BC around 3am Ontario time and finally crashed around 4am as I only had about 6.5 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours. I was pretty screwed up at that point.

I managed to sleep a bit on the friday morning. I went over to my cousin Prescott's place. I figured that his darling wife Linda would be home and she was. We caught up life. She had to get some yard work done so I head off to Cliff Park for a few hours to take pictures of the falls. After that I headed back and went out to dinner with Prescott and the family before heading back to my aunt and uncles place.

Soon it would be saturday morning. I left early in order to head up to Princeton for the wake at Vicki's place as she did not want any kind of funeral services.

I stopped in Hope BC to visit Stacey Gauthier and his family. We were in high school together and head not seen each other since 1983. We spent a few hours catching up before I continued my journey.

I spent a bit of time stopping in various places in Manning Provincial Park to take pictures. I finally arrived in Princeton around 1pm for the festivities. I met lots of various 2nd cousins, etc that I did not know existed. I must admit that the family tree is pretty well screwed up on my mom's side of the family.

The festivities were pretty well starting to break up around 4ish. I decided to head off down to Washington State in order to get a jump on my roadtrip to Montana, I was heading there to meet one of my Flickr photo contacts. Larry does alot of wildlife photography and I told him back in January that I wanted to come out for a photo shoot with him and that he wanted to come out east and do a river trip with me. I got hold of him and asked if he wanted to actually meet up in person. He talked it over with with wife and said sure.

I stopped at the Wallmart in Omak to get a phone card for my Net10 (www.net10.com) US disposable phone card. I was hoping to get a $15 card but they don't sell them. My only option would have been a $30 card until I checked the prices of the phones. Walmart ... you gotta love them price rollbacks ... $19.99 for a new phone with a $30 card included. I ended up getting another phone.

After that I headed off to the Grand Coulee Dam at got there around 9pmish. I managed to get some great night time shots when I was about to leave when a whole bunch of the locals showed up. They informed me that there would be a laser show on the dam starting at 10pm. I stayed to watch the show and it was pretty cool to say the least.

I pushed on and drove for a bit more before I started to get tired. I ended up crashing in the back of the car in my sleeping bag for a few hours before pushing on. I made it to Larry's place in Montana around noon. I spent the afternoon with his wife Dorothy. We went to Costco and she dropped me off at the local river play spot while she continued shopping. I managed to get some pics kayakers playing on Brennans wave. After that it was back to the house where I finally met Larry and his daughter. I managed to get some pics of a hummingbird. Not the greatest but ok. We had a great dinner and came up with the game plan for monday.

We left early monday morning to head over to the Bison range that was about and hour away. We spent the morning / early afternoon taking pictures of bison, deer, antelope, flowers, etc. After that we headed over to Brennans to see if there were any there paddling. There were a couple of people river surfing on the wave. We headed back to Larrys for dinner. Everyone was pretty well bagged and crashed.

Tuesday ended being along day. Plan A was to drive 752 km to North Cascade National Park in Washington State and camp there for the night. I left around 5am after saying goodybye to Larry and Dorothy. The only two places I really want to stop for photos was the Grand Coulee Dam and the North Cascades. I managed to get some great daytime shots of the Grand Coulee. It turns out that this is the highest generating output station in the USA.

I left there and came across the Chief Joseph Dam about an hour away. I was out stretching my legs and reading the sign at the rest stop when I found out that there was a power plant tour at 2pm. I had 30 minutes to go through security and get registered for the tour. I pulled up to the big ass security gate and pushed the button. The guy on the other end was quite surprised I was there for a tour. They opened the gate and I headed toward the guard house when a guy came out and asked me for photo id and then told me where to park my car and wait for my guide.

Soon I was greeted by my guide. I asked her where the others were and she said I was it. It turned out I was the first tour visitor that they have had during the work week in weeks. I guess its not that popular that time of the year. The tour was fantastic. I was able to see extra stuff and was totally amazed with the place. The tour was over and I had to push on. I managed to get to the park around 5pmish. I stopped lots to take pics. It was raining and almost snowing at times. Thats what happens when you go from 300 feet to 5400 feet about sea level. I managed to get some great shots of a bear and some water falls.

I decided not to camp. The weather sucked and it was only about 1 or 2 degrees Celius. Plan A now turned into a plan B drive of 870Km to Burlington, WA where I decided to grab a room for the night.

I slept in a bit on Wednesday morning before heading off to Anacortes and Deception Pass for pictures before heading back up to BC. I stopped at two more Costco's for gas before getting up to the Duty Free at the border. Yes I have a Costco fetish. It's one of my goals to visit as many of them before I die. I found out why Costco has the Kirkland brand. It turns out the first Costco is in Kirkland, WA. I did not have a chance to go to that one as it meant I would have had to travel south towards Seattle and I did not have the time.

I picked up a bottle at the duty free for my cousin. It turns out that they are pretty sticky at the Sumas border crossing for booze. I claimed my bottle plus the bottle of wine I forgot I still had in the trunk from Montana. The lady let me off as I had a good explanation for the second bottle. She was also surprised that I went to Montana and back in three days. I ended up showing here the bear pics as she was interested in them before heading north. I stopped off to pick up an apple pie at another Costco before heading back to Prescott's place around 7pm. We spent some time catching up before I crashed for the night.

Thursday was a crappy weather day. I spent it checking work email and studying for my upcoming exam. I went to Paige's lacrosse game that night. I spent a good part of friday taking pictures at Michael's track and field day. I also managed to get some great shots of Casandra as she did not know I was there taking pics. After that it was back to the house for a bit before I headed off to my uncles for dinner. I managed to get some pics of Alex and Rachel with her friends before heading back to Prescotts.

I got up early saturday and headed up to Squamish area for the day. I managed to get great shots in town, beach area, the spit, and Shannon Falls before heading back to Vancouver. I took some pics at the Lighthouse Park before having a late night dinner with my cousin Mike and his girlfriend Trish. I managed to get back to Prescott's after 11:30pm. The front door was locked and I thought I was going to be scolded like one of the kids for beeing late. Turns out they were all up watching a movie. I watched the last of it with them before going to bed.

Sunday morning was pretty well spent packing up and relaxing. I headed over to my uncles for a visit. My cousin Mike and I went up to Golden Ears Provincial Park before dinner. After dinner it was a movie before heading off to the airport.

The flight was delayed by about an hour and landed in Toronto at 07:30am monday morining. I picked up my luggage and car and headed off to work before heading home to crash. I was pretty well bagged.

Yes it was a busy time out west but it was relaxing for me. I am now in study mode for a Cisco re-certification exam. My three years is almost up and alot of stuff changes. I have done alot of reading over the last two months and it is now crunch time as I have to pass before the 24th of june which means no paddling, pics, etc until it is done.

Pictures can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/

Palmerfest and life

Well alot has happend in the last couple of weeks.

I spent the long weekend at Palmerfest. The weather was ok for the most part until it decided to rain on the sunday night and snow on the monday morning.

Here is the link to the pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157605150456465/

I found out last friday that my grandma Vicki out in BC had passed away.

I spent the basically spent this past weekend sleeping. I was supposed to go away paddling but woke up saturday morning feeling sick and dopey so I stayed home.

I managed to do some cleaning upstairs. I still have some tidying up to finish off in the basement.

I also managed to book my flight out west and get one of my bags packed. I am going to take a mini-vacation after the funeral on saturday.

I am going to head over to Montana on sunday to meet one of my Flickr contacts named Larry. We are going to do a photo shoot of some of the Montana wildlife. Some of his pics are here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/larry-dears/sets/72157603269222815/

After that it will be back to Vancouver for 5 days to visit with my relatives.

Elora Gorge

I had never been to the Elora Gorge before. I knew there was a slalom race on the sunday.

I missed the down river race on saturday due to paddling on the Washago Black with my friend Ryan.

I thought I would head over and at least take pictures or help out with the race. The weather forecast was cloudy with chance of rain. Not idean for picture taking but I figure what the hell.
I finally made it there around 09:30 after making the two hour trek from Barrie. It would have been sooner but the Tim Hortons in Fergus had to be slower than the one in Petawawa and that is saying alot.

I ran into the Greve's family and they pointed me down to the river where I ran in Katina, Jim, Steve, and by fluke Greg. Aparently Greg and Al were going to be the only open boaters in the slalom race. The course was definitely not open boat friendly.

I took a couple of test shots near the hole at gate 13 but decided to venture further up river in the flat section. Luckily I had my booties on as the rocks were very slippery. I also had on my PFD for the just in case oopps into the river. The scenery in the Gorge is absolutely beautiful which warrants another trip back on a nicer day to take pictures of the river and the old buildings in towns of Elora and Fergus. I found a semi-rock ledge that was making its way across the river. I walked out on that as far as I could to take pictures. I had to drop dwon on one knee and get wet for each of the pictures I took of the paddlers.

These slalom boats can really move. It is amazing how they just zip in and out of the gates with ease. Well maybe more technique than ease as the paddlers made it look real easy. I continued taking pictures of all the slalom boats untl this one paddler in particular caught my eye. I had to do a double take thru the lense. Was I seeing things .... nope it was a play boat going thru the gates. To my surprise it was young Richard Maggs. This would be his first time doing a slalom race. This kid is an excellent playboater and puts alot of the older paddlers to shame at places on the Ottawa. Now there was something else different about his paddling style .... he actually had a smile on his face as compared to the serious zoned in look the ther paddlers had.

Smile:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3252/2484221139_bca30f6bbd.jpg

Serious:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3042/2487300386_d1ee960fb2.jpg

Next came the two open boaters. It was interesting to see them negotiate the course as it was a difficult one. They both did great considering how hard it was.

So here I am standing out in the river when I almost get run over by a play boater. The guy was definitely not paying very close attention. His paddling style is just as bad as his driving style. It turned out to be Kevin Maggs.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2290/2484027475_23a48cfe82.jpg

He spent the next little while watching the race while sitting in his boat on the ledge I was on. Now just prior to this I noticed that Richard was on shore looking depressed. I heard him oversay "Gee dad I didn't mean to come dead last!".

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3265/2484223209_9904d07c3e.jpg

Just kidding ... the above picture of Richard was taken just as he was picking up his boat to carry it up river. Kevin and I continued to watch the race when some of Richards friends stopped by just in time to cheer him on. The rest of the racers had now finished their final runs when the motly crue armada of play boaters came up to me led by this guy.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3136/2484854970_2ea87cddc1.jpg

They asked me if I had the GF with me and I said yep and that Greg and I were going to take a run down the river from just below the old mill to the low bridge.

I quickly changed into my paddling gear and we set up the shuttle on the way out to the Old Mill in Elora. We did a quick run down the river and managed to play in a few spots and check out the scenery. The only thoughts in my mind was how this run would scare the crap out of my in higher water with all the undercuts and potential toilet bowl eddys, etc. We managed to make it back just as the awards cermonies had finished. We had to make sure Greg got his medal.

After that I said my goodbyes and headed back home.

All the pictures can be found here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157605009013083/

Washago Black

Not much has been happening in my life except that work is starting to get super busy with all the new responsibilites I now have.

Ryan came down from North Bay and we met up at the Washago Black to have a fun but relaxing paddle for a few hours.

We went bare bones so I did not take the camera along this time.

We met at the take just after 1pm and ran into a group of paddlers just coming off the water. We were pretty well suited up and ready to go. We threw Ryans boat onto my car and gave Karonne a ride up to the putin so she could get hers. You should have seen the look on her face when see asked me for a ride and I responded with "Your not a kayker are you". She looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

We spent the day focusing on catching eddys, ferrying, and most important of all surfing. We managed to spend alot of time at various spots surfing up a storm. The best surf spot of the day for us was the last set before Pinkies.

We ran into a couple of other groups of paddlers we knew. The takeout basically turned into a gabfest.

Ryan took be back up to get my car. The Kraiker brothers were driving by and put on the breaks when they realized it was me. We caught on life as I had not seen them since last fall.

Ryan had to boogy as he was on a schedule as he had to pick up his bride in Burke's Falls in order to give her a ride home.

It was a great day just to be out on the river with friends.

I stopped at my friend Mark's place for dinner. His house was in demolition mode. I had to earn my dinner by taking out the toilet as he wasn't sure how. Also did some computer fixing as well.

I finally got home around 9pm and did a quick load of laundry and re-packed my paddling gear for sundays adventure.

Level 6 Cup

Another roadtrip for taking pictures of paddler at the Level 6 Cup.

I left work on friday after around 1pm and managed to get to the Champlain Rapids just after 5pm. I ran into some of the regular crowd with the likes of Billy, Carly, Paul, Matt, Tyler, Mariann, and Paul. The weather was kind of crappy for taking pictures but I still took a few to stake out my spot for the next day.

I was kind of concerned with where I was staying for the night. I had arranged with my friend Geoff to stay at his parents place. Only problem was he was still in Kingston writing an exam the next day and I did not know if it was a done deal or not. To my delight he finally returned my call just as I was turning onto the road to his parents place. He said it was still a go. I met his mom, dad, and sis and we talked for a bit.

I asked if I could offload the boat into their garage for the night and explained that I was leaving for a bit to get some night time shots of downtown Ottawa.

See pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157604731349142/

It was getting late and I had not eaten since 11am. I gave Jen a called and we met for drinks and late night snack at an Irish pub named Darcy Magee's. The food was great. We spent time catching up and then it was real late. I finally got back to Geoff's place just before midnight.

I was up around 7am and packed up my gear. I showed Geoff's dad some pics
Geoff paddling thru out the 2007 season. He mentioned that Geoff was going to Skook soon and I showed him some pics of it as well.

I left around 8am as I want to stake out my picture taking spot for the day. I even marked it with my blue foam pad by attaching it to the fence. All I can say it was a very very long day in the sun taking over 1600 pictures between 9am and 4pm.

I talked to lots of people thru out the day as I was taking the pics and grabbing snacks, drinks, etc. My friends Jim and Ray showed up just after 1pm or so and spend a couple of hours taking pics as well.

Links to the pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157604780125661/

I was hoping to be able to stay until the last finals were done but I had to head off. I was going to meet my regular paddling crew at Palmer Rapids and paddle with them on sunday. I wanted to get there before dark in order to setup my tent and gear. I stopped along the way to pick up desert and ice. I made it in time for dinner. Neil knew I was coming and he saved me some.

Out came the drinks and desert for around the camp fire. I finally had to crash around 10pm as I was beat.

I managed to sleep in until 7am which is huge for me considering I am normally up at 04:30. I went into town for a 5F (number 5 and a flushy) at the local restaurant. Our plan was to leave the Coop at 9am and head over to the Middle Mad. We finally left just before 10.

I could not believe how high the frickin water was. It was zooming and I was starting to regret my choice of boat for the day as I did not have the battleship with me. I was trying out my friends Nitro and it does not exactly have very good initial stability for me.

I managed to get the boat down to just above Staircase. We all got out to take a look. Some of the others made their runs. I decided to do the left sneek route but ended up swimming for maybe 10 feet and self rescuing. I put back in just below a hole after seeing a tandem boat getting sucked into it and losing its center airbag.

I made it down the left side of Staircase fine but barely. Man this boat is way to tippy. I would love to spend more time in it with warmer water but today was just not my day. I finally caught up to where the tandem boat was pinned. It took about an hour to pull the boat off once we setup the rescue gear. The boat came out better then expected with only a broken seat and gunwale plus a few minor other things.

Noel, Paul, and Brenda were finished. The rest of us all headed down to Chalet. This is where I had my second very long swim of the day and that is when I said I was finished. Derek said he would paddle my boat to the takeout. Greg ended up losing his boat. I walked back up to where Neil's truck was and drove down to the takeout.

The others headed down river in search of Greg's boat. I know the other tandem had 3 people paddling. I am not sure of what all the details were but they didn't find the boat when they arrived at the takeout. Derek had paddled a little further down river to search and walked back. I met him on the road and we picked up my boat.

We finally found the boat about an hour or so later on someone's lawn. We wer basically doing a search along peoples property along the river as it was the only place it could end up with the strong winds. Greg was very relieved to get get his boat back.

I finally left for home and stopped off at my friend Marks for dinner and got home around 10pm and went to bed.

Canadian Team Trials

I decided to head over to Chambly, Quebec to watch / take pcitures of the competitors for the Canadian Freestyle Paddling team for the 2009 worlds.


I figured it was time for another roadtrip to a place I had never been.


I left right from work on friday afternoon. The plan was to head over to Ottawa friday night and stay with my friend Jim. The would be a double duty trip as I had to deliver some boats and gear that I was storing to another friend in Ottawa.


I was going to just head straight across the 401 and up the 416 but that soon changed after I heard the crappy traffic report. I decided to take the Plan B route across the 407 to 7 and go all the way to Ottawa that way instead. I made the trip in five hours which was pretty good considering I stopped a couple of times on the way.


I headed straight to Jim's place. We caught up on life issues and he showed me a little bit about using iPhoto on a MAC. We ended up going out for a late night bite and then I crashed as it had been a long day since I was up at my regular 04:30 time.


I left around 6am saturday morning and made it to Chambly around 08:30. It was great to see old friends and catch up. I met a couple of new people from the BC Boys and others from Quebec that I had only taken pictures of but never talked inperson.


I managed to carve out a pretty sweet vantage point for taking pictures. I had the river bank as a backrest and my blue pad for my butt. I had to move a couple of heavy rocks out of the way but it was worth it in the end run. I took well over 2400 frames that days but ended up with 2254 after the deletions. I was really disappointed that I some how forgot my polarizing filter and had a hell of a time re-adjust for the sunlight bouncing off the wave.

I spent from around 09:30 am until 7:30pm taking pictures. It was a long day in the sun. I managed to get a few breaks in between the heats to chat with the other people around. The competition was fun to watch. It was great to see the upcoming juniors as alot of them have great potential as they continue their training.

Everyone headed over to the Marius for dinner. I started to offload the pics from my camera onto my laptop and it didn't take long for the people to start looking over my shoulder. I spent the rest of the time during dinner catching up with friends on life.

I left Chambly around 10pm and headed back west. I grabbed a room in Cornwall just after midnight. I finally go home just after 1pm and spent the rest of the day relaxing and gettting the pictures organized for uploading to my Flickr site.

Here are the pictures from that day http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157604646157228/

Lower Black River

Sunday 13-Apr-2008

I got up around 06:30 to re-pack all my paddling gear. I also had to get the rest of the room packed up and put downstairs in storage in order to vacate the room. I started working on Saturdays trip report and had breakfast. I left just after 09:30 as I had to be at the Lower Black putin by 10am. Kevin and Daryl were pulling onto the street as I was pulling out. They did a U-turn and followed me all the way to the lovely town of Queensborough.

Janice and some of the others were already there. The rest of the armada was slowly showing up. Jim Coffey from Esprit had showed up as well. I forgot to mention in Saturdays report that he came up to me part way through the night and asked me what my plans are for Sunday. I told him the Lower Black and asked if he was going to join us. He laughed and said sure as this would be the first time he would ever be in a Colin Moneypenny trip report. I was glad he was there as this brought the open boat numbers up to two.

I was already dressed for paddling. They others started to suit up and then we did the shuttle. I headed off down river to check out one of the two brand new H20 paddles I had borrowed from Steve Horvath. The first section was a really long flat water stretch and it gave me a chance to check out the paddle. I waited just at the bottom of the first set of rapids for the rest of the gang to show up.

We all headed downriver together and came to the first major set which consisted of catch the eddy on right, ferry over to eddy on left and line up to punch through the hole, catch the eddy on the right and line up to run the four foot drop and punch through the hole.

The river would normally be a class 2/3 run but was a 3/4 plus in some parts based on the water levels and the consequences of swimming. I made the run fine. I just had to sit in the eddy’s for a bit to boat scout but I was happy how things went.

Some of the other runs were huge wave trains. I was hoping to take pictures today but I never had a chance to take a single one. We came to the next set. Andrew was walking back to his boat and said you might want to walk this one. We all got out to scout. It was a huge river wide hole with a small line down the right hand side. Most of us walked it. I think Marie was the first to run. I know Jim, Leah, and Scott ran it. Not sure who else did as I was dragging my boat through the trees across the snow to get in the eddy below.

We ran another set of smaller stuff before coming to the set with the falls and that is where my day went to total crap. The start of the run had three huge waves in it. I punched through the first two fine and hit the angle wrong on the third and went over.

This would normally not be a problem as we would swim side by side as I would tow the boat back to shore. But this happend just above the falls on the river which was not a good thing. I had to let go and swim like hell holding onto a brand new demo paddle from H20 that I did not want to end up paying for. I just made it to shore in time. Thanks to Milt for the quick tow and thanks to Janice for the hand back onto shore.

I was feeling fine but my only problem now is where the hell did my boat go. I don’t think any of the others that were ahead of me had either run it or walked around it. I think my boat ended up be the first one to run the falls. I hiked up and over to the eddy below the falls. No boat. I looked further down the river no boat. At this point I figured holy crap I’m screwed and had a long walk out ahead of me. Scott asked me if I wanted to swim behind his boat and he we tow me down the river. Slight problem cold water and no drysuit. I only had dry top and pants. I told him I would be better off walking. At least I was toasty warm and had proper footwear on and had a paddle to probe the snow/water with.

So after hike through waist deep snow, walking up a creek, and through a couple of ponds, onto a snow covered ATV trail which led to a dirt road for a combined total of 3km. I managed to get back to the river and saw Milton. They still had not found my boat. I went back up the hill and Pauline came out of here house and asked me what the scoop was. I explained to her what had happened and she offered me a ride back out to the highway otherwise it would have been another 5KM walk down the dirt road. I graciously accepted.

She dropped me off and I thanked her for the ride. I scurried the banks of the river along the highway hoping to see my boat in the calm part of the bend. No boat. I stopped and talked to Linda who lived on the river. She took my name and number and would call me if it showed up. I also asked her to let other paddlers know I was going back to the car if they came by. I am walking back along the highway when another paddler picks me up. He gave me a ride back to where the car was. A couple of the group was back. Janice was glad to see I made it out of the woods ok.

They actually found my boat just shortly after I got my ride out. It was about 4KM down river from the falls. It had apparently ran the long canyon section and two other sets of rapids all by it self before ending up in an eddy. The pumps were apparently still going and all my gear including the other brand new H20 paddle was still in the boat. Luckily I have an extra bag cage where all the gear gets stored in so it does not dangle below the boat when it is upside down. I would like to know if boat was found right side up or upside down.

Marie had graciously paddled my boat back while someone else towed her kayak. Thanks to all for getting my boat and gear back. Now for the final test. Was the camera ok. I opened the Pelican case and it was bone dry.

I got changed and started saying goodbye to the gang. Jim came over and said it was nice paddling half the river with you. I headed back to Queensborough for some snacks. I bought a whole apple pie and a hamburger. The town folk get together when paddlers show up and make pies and other tasty treats for sale. I ate my hamburger and put the pie in the car to have at home. I talked to some of the other boaters that had run the Upper Black. They said it was full on big fun.

I headed back to the B&B to get the rest of my stuff. I had to totally empty my car onto the driveway. I was going home with more stuff then I came with I was shuttling back some stuff for a friend. The guys at the B&B did not think I would get the big pile of stuff into the car but I am the king of pack.

So all in all paddling was great until the swim.

Lessons learned:

Yes it was a bummer that I had to walk out but at least I had the proper footwear and gear on to do it. It is amazing how many paddlers in the smaller boats are only wearing fleece bottom or minimal footwear not appropriate for walking long distances in.

I was nice and warm. I had food and a lighter in my pfd and a paddle to use as a walking stick. I new which way I had to go and was always aware of where the river was.

I made it back safe and sound to the car. It could have been worse. I could have been stranded or spent the night in the woods.

I told Janice and the others I was going to post the lost boat notice followed up by this report and we could use it as a safety reminder about spring water paddling. I was very surprised when I got a call at home last night from Neil asking me if I was ok … thanks buddy. My thanks also goes out to the others who responded to my post in a positive way.

If anyone else from this trip wants to add their two cents worth about river safety or other concerns then chime in.

Until next time be safe out there.