Started off a little shaky though and if you would have told me we would be at Newborough lock tonight I would have laughed. Woke up around 4:30 am and wandered outside to do a weather check, blistering wind and could see the waves, uh oh, not looking good, sat on the dock for about an hour and watched the sun peak over the horizon before heading back to sleep, gonna be a hopeless day of continued wind.
Back up at 7 and wind had decreased, a few waves but nothing crazy, woke up Julie, time to go girl, on the water by 7:30, not enthusiastically as we skipped breakfast, we were only 4k from Rideau Ferry so just wanted to get there, wind had changed so was coming across from the side, no head wind, wooohooo, still, doesn't look great and settling in for a long day, stopped at Rideau Ferry and grabbed a coffee and protein bar.
This time going down north shore home, adds distance but better to be protected along shore before waves pick up by the time they hit south side, all I can say is the wind gods loved us today, it totally shifted so was behind us and water was calm, literally stayed that way for the remainder of the day, one of the best paddle days yet, simply amazing and the Rideau lakes are phenomenal.
Raced a sailboat to Murphy's Point and won, stopped for a rest and walked around the point, would be a good place to stay and was one of our ditch points today, too nice not to paddle. We find this little island barely the size of a picnic table, I know this because there was a picnic table there, got some cool pictures.
Police boat drove by not 20 feet beside Julie on full plane, WTF? Shouldn't they know better? The stopped just ahead of us to check if a small boat had safety equipment, really? Safety? Now you give a shit about safety? My fuse for idiots on the water is pretty low and as we paddle up Julie advises me to keep my mouth shut (but nicer) and I heed her advice for once.
As we pass a cottage Julie "Eagle Eye" sees a deer alongside a lawn and we stop to check it out, very cool.
A little further up this loon being protective keeps popping up beside kayaks, right beside, got some cool pictures.
We hit Narrows at 1pm after 23+Km and breakout Brunch, eggs, bacon, salad and take opportunity to freeze beer in fridge.
We then decide that the 7km to here is worth it to get the big lakes out of the way, never know with the wind so take it when you get it.
As we pull into canal leading to lock, I'm 5 feet from shore, look up and big deer looking back, whoa, I try and tell julie to get cam as quiet as she can but too late, he stays long enough for me to back up and snap a couple, was sooo cool. Interesting that people in boat never even noticed, amazing what you see when going by slow.
Coming up to lock, 4 or 5 boats go by and swamp us, Julie pissed, 30km in waves and gets soaked in sight of the dock, people don't care.
We pull up and start unpacking, cold beer first, our last and we share. People in big boat bring their dog for walk and wet little mut shook all inside our tent just as we were about to put up fly. Arggghg. After a few hints re lack of cold beer and no return offer, we give up, even after moving a picnic table for them, I give up, being nice doesn't pay.
We have dinner and 3 boats show up and 20+ people pile out and start setting up camp, more seem to come out of the woods literally (by car) and having a party across from us, at least the music is good and tooi tired not to sleep. They are from kingston and have family over from england so decided to go for a boatride/sleep over. Seem like a nice crowd, except for "leroy" the dog who seems to like biting.
Should be a short day tomorrow, meeting a friend of Julie's at Caffeys Lock and he will be paddling the last three days with us, welcome aboard Glenn, bring beer, rye and Tims.
oh no! Another rooster in the henhouse, watch out! But the rooster is welcome if he is bringing rye, beer, and smokie-poos with him I bet.
ReplyDeleteFor your next run-in with the constabulary, may I suggest the following greetings:
"I thought you had to be in relatively good physical condition to be a Police Officer"
"You don't happen to have any beer in that boat with you, do you Officer?"
"Didn`t I see you get your ass kicked on Cops?"
"Aren`t you the guy from the Village People?"
"What do you mean `have I been drinking?` You`re the trained specialist"