A nice warm day, I drove up to Washago with Janet to go paddling.
At the bridge where more paddlers were, we got immediately attacked by a lot of black flies and that was at 10.30 am in a nice sunny spot.
Bill Ness had organized this trip to play in the water.
There were about 20 WCA members and some paddlers from Peterborough and Kawartha Canoe Club.
It was hard to believe but last week it was cancelled due to extreme high levels of the water, what caused a lot of flooding in this area.
While the water this week wasn't that high or dangerous.
Both Janet and I decided we would not put on a wetsuit or any special gear as we would not go swimming. We are both strong paddlers. :)
But once everyone was in the water, it looked like we were really 'underdressed', but the weather was nice and sunny, so with confidence we paddled on.
The river is flat with a few rapids in it, where we played in the waves, surfed and had fun.
Most of the participants were in play boats and kayaks, only a few tandem canoes were here.
The river meanders through different arms with different opportunities to play. We would go in circles and find other areas with a nice rapid to have fun in.
It was at times busy at a rapid and we had quite a large canoe. So my apologies if we 'pushed' you aside, but we for sure had a good time.
At one time we surfed on a wave, but either didn't had the right angle or tried to hard to push us in the right angle. A big wave under the boat pushed us over and we went swimming.
and what a relief it was, we were both okay, and the water was actually quite refreshing.
We laughed, came out okay and tried to figure out, how in the heck that happened.
After a nice lunch on a rock in the middle of the river, sunbathing and drying and enjoying the groups company, we paddled and played some more.
There was another tricky rapid, and we were worried that our boat was too long to make the turn and not hit the rocks on the side. After removing a big tree that was partly blocking the stream, the guys discussed the rapid and the angle and went in their boats. I enjoyed seeing the play boats from Scott, Brian and Jon going down the rapid and maneuvering their boats in it.
Going around the corner was another fun rapid. After a great explanation from Jon, and the camera trusted to Eugene, Janet and I went to the top of the rapid, taking it slowly and enjoying the ride and turning into an eddie. High fiving with our paddles, we decided to do it again.
Portaging and pulling our canoe back to the top of the river, we went down the rapid again with a bit more confidence.
What an awesome experience.
It was a great time to be with other fellow paddlers, playing and enjoying the river and the nature around it.
Everybody was in kind of a hurry to leave, so Janet and I decided to go for an ice cream and head back home too.
I realized that my canoe is hard to balance sitting in the bow, either it is too pointed or the seat is too far to the front, but spreading your knees or reaching was not easy in this position.
The understanding link are pictures that were taken with my camera during this trip.
Thank you Janet for being my paddling buddy
Thank you Bill for organizing this trip.
Thanks to Jon, Eugene, Sarah, for your support and guidance
Thanks to all the other paddlers that I forgot the name from.
https://plus.google.com/photos/104477673238900710374/albums/58782219789…
Emmy
