Me making my line on Black Chute, after years of flubbing it!
I got a chance to kayak on the Main channel of the Ottawa River with Paul and Judy Mason.

Before we begin, it’s important to say that they know what they are doing. Me? Well, Laura and I took a kayaking course 9 years ago, and I’ve returned to the river more or less once a year, thanks to Paul. I’m a tad rusty, and can’t forsee how I’ll ever be anything but…

Judy descending the hill at the put-in at 25 km/h.

Click the picture to see a QuickTime movie of Paul’s surfing mastery

Paul, incidentally, is a canoe master, author (or here), speaker, and cartoonist (which is how I came to know him). Paul has been kind enough to take me down the Ottawa these times, and gradually I starting to realize what I’m supposed to be doing. In other words, Paul really has to watch out for me.

And Judy is a phys-ed and English teacher with who skis cross-country marathons in the winter and rows dragonboats four times a week when the water isn’t frozen.

A couple of things. What Paul is in is a canoe. It is a very odd shaped canoe, and people made comments on it during our paddle, which is something, since Paul has a history of having oddly shaped canoes. This one is the weirdest yet, so far as I can tell. Here’s how to tell a canoe…1) single blade paddle. 2) he’s kneeling, and you can tell by looking at his posture. A kayaker like me has his bum on the floor of the boat and has two blades. Both Paul and Judy’s boats have large airbags to displace water, allowing them to roll it back up after being rolled upside down. Not that rolling a canoe is easy, just for folks like Paul and Judy.

For the uninitiated, there are two fun things to do when paddling…one is going down through the rapids, and the other is going back to surf the waves of the rapids you pass.

Surfing, you ask? Yep. If you picture an ocean, as the waves come into shore, the water is essentially in one place. Now reverse that for the river…the water rushes past, and the waves (created by uneven bottom features like rocks) stay in one place, and you can surf ’em. And once you can do that, you can do tricks in them.

Well, Paul can, anyway. I am still learning, and in the sit-on top I paddled yesterday, I got pretty solidly thrashed. I might take my little kayak on the river next year…maybe, maybe, but in the meantime, Laura’s sit-on top is more stable, and easy to re-enter if you get thrashed, but it can’t be rolled, so it’s a swim and a haul each time.

I surprised Paul by making my line on all my runs (despite showing incredible incompetence like almost going over the one at top BACKWARDS…you should hear Paul’s commentary on the video) and only getting overturned once running down the river, when a boil at the bottom of Hair made short work of me.

Holy cow, I can be incompetent!

Despite the trashing, inhaling a fair amount of river, and free dental flossing–er– flushing, the if-at-first-you-don’t-succeeding paid off, and I ended up with a short accidental surf and later on, my first trick–an ender!

My ender!

…but Paul can do it better!

I enjoyed the company, and being in the great outdoors. Swimming to my boat in an eddy downstream, no one around, I rolled on my back and stared at the clouds in the approaching evening sky, and just relaxed. It was a really great day.

Goofy at the end of the day…Paul’s boat on top of mine as we take on some major riffles–blindfolded!

To celebrate my dad’s birthday, my mom took available family out to 360, the CN Tower restuarant the other night. Jon loves the CN Tower (for its elevators) and the restaurant (for the rotating view and the passing structural bulkheads).

Midori making lemonade with all of our lemon wedges.

In fact, Jon’s love for bulkhead spotting netted he and Midori a souvenir when, late in the meal, he lunged at an upcoming bulkhead, knocking over a candle lamp, which in turn broke a water galss square onto Midori’s half-eaten dessert. Since Midori had found the chocolate mousse a little too rich anyway, she declined a replacement dessert, and the staff presented Midori and Jon with adorable souvenir drinking glasses.

Yesterday, Midori and I spent the day at Canada’s Wonderland, where I went on almost every ride she dragged me to. (I did avoid the Sledgehammer–I had a bad experience with overaggressive interior facing spinning at the Disney World teacups when I was ten, and the SH added sudden up and downs to just such spinning. Maybe next time.) We did enjoy the Minebuster, the Cyclone and the Drop Zone. Just as the Austrailian aboriginals purportedly believed that the camera steals a piece of your soul, Midori believes that a bit of you is left at the top of the DZ, and a serious chunk of me is still somewhere up there, let me tell you. Wow, that drop is intense. I like it very much, but the 45 minute wait was too long to do it again. So off went went to repeat the Wilde Beast, the Minebuster and Cyclone. Midori located the perfect seats for the Cyclone. Eight or ten seats to the left of the control panel on the ride as you enter to board. Those seats are the ones that face directly down during the hangtime when the ride is at 120 degrees up in the air. Zero gees. Wheee!

I found most of the new rides roller coasters and such had all of their thrills in the first drop, after that it was just lightly pounding you on the head and shaking you up, perhaps for loose change. Give me the Wilde Beast and the Minebuster any day (happily, I’m in tune with today’s youth–Midori agrees with me!)

Sadly, everything seemed a little more intense than when I was there 10 or so years ago. I guess I’m getting old and more sensitive to being roughed up. I hope Midori or Tamo visit again in the next few years so that I can go again before I age my way off the roller coasters.

My sister Patti and brother-in-law David and kids were up at the cottage and they decided to go tubing. Not much of a powerboater me, I spotted and also volunteer to take Austin out, which went okay, though I sensed some degree of relief on his part at the end of the ride.

So then the possibility of taking Jon out came up, and Jon said yes.

Now, Jon takes after Laura and me in his belief that kayaks, canoes and sailboats are cool, and powerboats are just noisy and stinky. So it was a big leap for him to decide to go out. He had no idea what he’d be up for.

We went for two runs (Jon on my lap), both of which he enjoyed and both of which ended in wipeouts. The first one was spectacular…we windowshaded so quickly I simply found myself four or five feet under, instinctively hoisting Jon to the surface (no need of course, since we were wearing our PFDs, but instinct does take over). After the second wipeout, he actually surfaced laughing, and now he pretty much thinks that you end a good tubing run by going for an exciting dunk!

So there we were, out in the middle of Georgian Bay, a long way from anywhere, and Jon is delighted, no sense of panic or worry, and both times announces that he wants to “swim back”. (It would have taken a while).

Along came the boat, and Jon’s only time of distress. He did not like climbing into the noisy, smelly boat though at the end, as we headed back, Jon looked up and around and realized “It’s like a car!”. He insisted that we arrive gracefully, however, so as the boat approached the dock, we jumped out and swam in to the beach. One has an appearance to keep up, doncha know.

Thanks to Grandpa and Uncle Dave for the new experience.

Almost 12 year-old niece Midori arrived last week from Vancouver and has just finished one of two sessions of hanging out with us. She travelled on her own as an unaccompanied minor (UM…) and apparently the flight attendants treated her like a four-year old. Quite the ritual collecting her at the airport: I had to show ID and sign papers AND get the keys to her handcuffs. Uncle Bail Bondsman! (okay, okay, there were no cuffs, but Air Canada may want to look into the idea…)

Midori eating grapes. Twelve at a time.

Much fun is ensuing, but I’d expected more on the soccer front (she’s a big sports enthusiast) and less on the watching The Simpsons front. We did get a lot of beach volleyball going at the cottage.

Jon seems a little stunned by the whirlwind…there’s not as much contact between the two as I expected. He’s got his LeapPad addiction (more on that later), so he’s not working on his socialization. Oh well, maybe when she reappears tomorrow, things will get interesting.

She and I intend to hit Canada’s Wonderland on Monday, using the helpful advice from Reid.

More as I think about it.

Just returned from a week at the cottage. This year we had a lot of guests joining us for portions of our stay, and that made it a lot more fun.

The weather was varied…early on it was windy and warm for Ian, Mireille, Vivienne and Charlotte’s stay.

Ian and Vivienne

It later settled into a hazy, humid doldrum. That coincided with the visit of Daniel, Ross, Tom and Michelle though, so we that simply meant setting up a badminton net on the beach (something you can’t do the bulk of the time due to constant northerlies off of Georgian Bay).

Reid, Luisa, Mike and Ronnie dropped by for the afternoon and Tom, Michelle, Daniel and Ross stayed awhile

The only really gray day was Thursday, but a sudden heavy wind meant great kayaking for Jon and I. We didn’t miss a day, but Thursday was the big wave day. Laura went out with the video camera and caught some wonderful images of us, and confirmed for me that Jon was indeed having a good time (well, given my relative position, I’ve never actually seen him smile while I’ve been paddling, have I?)

Check out how the bow dips under in this sequence from the video:

Memories that will stick:
Walking into the cottage to find Jon and Vivienne in a silent, but determined tug-of-war for the satellite remote. Both looked at me, desperately pleading. I kept walking.

Daniel skipping his first stones.

Daniel and Ross badminton skills improving radically, as though to put Tom and I on notice that in a very few short years we will be steamrolled in doubles.

Ross’s thoughts on ice cream sandwiches.

Daniel directing us in the destruction of his sandcastle, which had survived a light thunderstorm the night before and over a day of constant threat of bombardment or impact, since it was on a badminton court. It didn’t even quite succumb to the 50 of so kilos of water we dumped on it.

Jon building his first sandcastles, with patience and intent, ordering me around to get more water for his special sand/mud recipe. He intended to make one and spent well over half an hour building and crushing and building again.

Kayaking in the waves.