Paddling By

A typical day starts with Andrew rising at the crack of dawn and cooking us breakfast.  Andrew is definitely the early bird of the group.  Breakfast usually consists of oatmeal with powdered milk, brown sugar, and a dash of salt.  We then pack up all of our gear into the holds of the kayaks and start paddling for the day.  The morning process typically takes around two hours.

Before we are on the river, we feel out the day and decide how we feel and how far we would like to go that day.  The paddling in the morning usually covers the most miles.  We will go for a few hours and stop and eat a can of fruit.  Like most of our eating, this process is very ritualistic.  After we get the can of fruit open, we each take a sip of juice from the can.  We then proceed to take turns eating a piece of fruit, occasionally sipping the juice until the can is empty.

After the snack, we put in some more miles before lunch.  Lunch almost always consists of peanut butter and honey sandwiches, but sometimes we use jam instead of honey.  Lunch is served in three rounds.  Each person makes a round of sandwiches for the group giving us a total of three apiece.  Sometimes, we might take a little swim in the river to cool off or spend some time napping before we hit the river again.

The afternoons are spent grinding out more miles before we reach our destination.  Sometimes we stop by a town in the afternoon to get some water and possibly buy some more groceries.

Paddling on the river is usually quite varied.  Each day brings us an assortment of waves, eddies, strange currents, barges, and beautiful scenery.  I enjoy paddling with some waves on occasion because of the sheer thrill of the experience.  It also is more interactive than just paddling on a placid surface.  We enjoy napping and floating during the calmer sections of the river as long as there is a current.  It is rather disappointing to wake up from a nap and realize you haven’t made any progress.

Many of the locals along the river, have a fear of its power.  I suppose if I were to live along the banks in the shadow of a mighty river that has destroyed so much life and property, I too might fear it.  Though I have never felt out of control on the river.  The kayaks are very responsive and since we sit so low to the water, we are able to balance pretty easily.

By the time we stop for the evening, the sun is in its last phase.  We try to find a camping site that has a sandy beach to land the kayaks on and also so we can avoid the mud.  Sometimes, there will be some woods we can set the tent in or we will just place the tent on the beach.

We do most of our cooking on a fire.  Although, we do have a small backpacking stove if we need to use it.  Some of our favorite dinners include Macaroni and Cheese with spaghetti sauce and summer sausage, ramen with black beans, and rice with crunchy noodles, soy sauce, and beans or meat.

Dinner is followed by relaxing, reading, journaling, or if we are exceptionally tired: sleep.  After some down time, we crawl into the tent, hoping to not let in any mosquitoes, and drift off to sleep to begin a new day.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Jonathan's Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.