Future Link: Pat Schoonover

This was the shortest paddle with my kayak and it was also the one where I learned the most.  Before this I had always kayaked with our son, Ezra.  He's a good paddling instructor.   Now it was time for me to try this on my own.  I did this before the Park-to-Park Paddle and this short two mile adventure helped to season me.  My husband, Reid volunteered to be support crew.  We loaded everything and drove the short distance to Embarrass (a small community nearby) to the launch area.  Reid helped me get the kayak in the water and steadied it while I got in.  There's nothing better than the feeling of getting launched and beginning a new paddling adventure.  About a quarter of a mile in the river was completely blocked by a tree that had fallen.  No way around, under or over unless I got out and hauled the kayak back into the river on the other side.  So I did.  Not bad and so I paddled along.  The biggest lesson learned was that paddling is very much like mountain biking.  You have to read the path, or in this case, the water.  Stay in the deeper parts and stay away from swamps.

What's that?  Yes, I managed to paddle into a stinky, mucky, mosquitoey swamp full of nettles and grass that grabs and cuts.  It was pretty hot by now, and really humid.  I tried to call Reid on my cell phone to let him know I was in a swamp, but okay.  I thought that perhaps I could find a way over something, or if I climbed to a higher spot I would see where to haul the kayak to get underway again.  Nope.  Finally Reid called back and he said "Paddle back to Embarrass."  That is upstream, but I figured that was the only way.  Funny, Google Earth showed a clear route!  

I got the kayak in the more liquid part of the swamp and started out.  But suddenly there was the rest of the river!  It was like an optical illusion.  That was the other big lesson.  You have to read the water not just for depth, stumps, rocks and trees lurking underwater, but you have to find clues for the flow.  Bends in a river can sometimes look like a dead end.  By this time Reid was back in Embarrass.  I called and told him to meet me at the bridge as planned.    So I paddled steadily and got there.  Since this adventure was only 2 miles and took me almost 2 hours, we didn't know how long it would take me when, on my next paddle on the Wolf River, I went about 5 miles.  That one only took an hour and a half.  Reid and I were both surprised.  By now I have paddled an 8 mile stretch and the next 10 mile stretch of the Wolf River.  I'm ready for more!

Reid took these photos.  The first photo is, of course, the river sans Pat.  Reid would holler and I would holler back like sand hill cranes calling to each other.  Reid wanted to get a shot of me coming around the bend, and he did.