“Spend as much time as possible on mountains, in small boats, or otherwise out in the weather; if you never get wet, cold, exhausted or scared, you won’t properly appreciate being dry, warm, rested and safe.” ~ Peter Jay

"I’m an adventuring river rat at heart. Put me on a floating piece of driftwood and I’m happy." ~ Christina Glauner

"There’s folly and foolhardiness on one side and daring and calculation on the other." ~ C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Taking rookies out...

Yesterday, Chuck and I took a couple of non-paddler friends of mine around La Framboise Island. I paddled my CD Storm GT, Chuck paddled his QCC 700X and my friends paddled my Perception Carolina 14 and Chuck's WS Tsunami 14.5.

I also was playing with my new camera (Pentax Option W80) and mount (Stickypod). I setup the camera to operate on interval shooting, which allows me to set a time interval (i.e. 30 seconds) for the camera to take pictures until the flash card is full or a set number of pictures is taken. It is a very neat feature.

We took our time around the island, stopping frequently to adjust the seats etc. in the borrowed boats and give a few tips on paddling, etc. We paddled through the channel/chute alongside the island... less than a hour ahead of us another couple of paddlers beached their boat, scrambled into the island, and captured more pictures of the moose (Yes, Dave P. was one of the two!).

We did have to use our hands to propel us through the last little bit of the channel/chute. When we got to the dike structure, the water was too low to get the fiberglass and carbon/kevlar boats across, though I went over and back in my plastic boat. So we headed out into the main channel and back around the end of the island. As we were coming around the end of the island, through the main channel, apparently a fishing tournament was ending. 20+ boats started coming through the narrow channel at the end of the island. The water got rough and we had to stop to bail some water on the borrowed boats.

Luckily, once we got past the end of the island, the water turned to glass and the rest of the trip was uneventful. Well, besides my camera battery dieing, a function of interval shooting I believe. I then spent a little time paddling backwards!

This trip was probably the longest it has ever taken me to go around the island, but it was still a blast just to introduce non-paddlers to the sport. We covered 6.5 miles.

1 comment:

  1. i have always wanted to go kayaking or any outdoor adventures like camping or airsoft or mountain climbing..im just so trapped in the office right now :(

    ReplyDelete