Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Day 3 - Jeff

An absolutely perfect day in every way.

Woke up at 5am, not by choice though, had a huge thunder/lightning storm and it was nasty, thunder was so loud the tent was shaking, woke Julie and I right up, good news is our tent is almost bulletproof and so no worries about getting rained on.

Was mobile around 8am and headed off to store to stock up, smokes, coffee, eggs and beer, felt weird buying alcohol at 8am but hey, we need a cold drink tonight and this is the only LCBO for miles.

When I got back to tent Mr squirrel had eaten his way through Julie's deck bag mesh to get at the werthers caramel candy, get the smelled the wrappers, won't be doing that again, Julie said she heard something through the night, would have been a shock had she seen that in the middle of the night.

Today is a relatively short day, only have to get to the narrows lock between Upper and Big Rideau lakes, 17km, I told Julie 9, opps, decided to relax and enjoy the morning and leave around noon, made up some eggs for breakfast and organized the wet clothes we (I) left out in the kayak ignoring the storm warning. On the water at noon after debating whether rain was coming.

Absolute perfection on the water today, was a little overcast and not a bit of wind, smooth water all the way. The scenery in this section of the Rideau is spectacular, not much talking going on as we both just enjoyed the paddle. I like the clear water to see fish swimming by and Julie likes the Loon calls which seem to be everywhere. It's still eerily quiet and very little boat traffic, very nice.

Passed a lady working on her computer in her "office" on the lake, literally a converted boathouse, as we drove past she slid the window open and said "if you have to work this isn't a bad place to do it". Amen, but we don't have to work, paddle on.

Made the lock in just under three hours, no current really helps the km's pass by. Setup our camp, went for a swim and enjoyed the rest of the day, with cold beer!

Met another couple (Steve and Tina) paddling the Rideau in little 11 foot plastic kayaks!? You nuts? Where do you store your food? Food? We thought there were restaurants along the way, last night we had trailmix for dinner and only enough gas to boil four more pots of water for package oatmeal, invited for breakfast (eggs/fruit) tomorrow as we hand them a cold beer, think they needed more than we did.

As we get into the tent for the night we can't help being lulled to sleep by the sweet sound of yes, you got it, yacht at the dock running gas generator on full, almost ready to pull out Bullwinkle and take shots at his boat, considered egging him but I don't want to run out of food, Julie I don't think would appreciate morning packaged oatmeal as much as me.

Tomorrow (today as I am writing this at 6am from being woke up by generator,he filled up gas and restarted) is a planned long day to cross Big Rideau Lake (36km), we talked last night and might break it up in two days, find an island along the way, getting used to these 15-20km days and having time to relax.

General Stats:

We have traveled a total of 65km so far, 18 hours of paddling, well 12 actually paddling, 6 is stopped waiting for locks. We run at about 7km per hour and not pushing so end up with a moving average of 5.4km per hour. We are taking our time and enjoying everything, will go 8 days then turn around come back regardless of whether we reach ottawa.

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