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!
So you ask: What’s with this Weather Network addiction of Jon’s anyway? He’s been watching it fairly obsessively for about 3 years now, since kindergarten. He was at home sick with the flu one February, and within a couple of days took an interest in both Blues Clues and the Weather Network. Both are still favourites of his, but if Blues Clues was taken off the air I don’t think Jon would really notice, whereas if the Weather Network suddenly disappeared I tremble to think of the consequences! 
