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.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
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/
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/
Monday, June 16, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, June 13, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
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/
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/
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