Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Kayaking and Recovering

Tuesday the weather was perfect for a 12 mile trip down the Colorado river. We got up and did our usual morning routines, then we headed into town to drop off the motorcycle and trailer at the take out point. We then brought the truck back to the campground and started getting the Sea Eagle inflated and ready to go.

It took us about 30 minutes to get everything ready. We packed a small cooler with lunch and drinks. I also packed a dry bag with my camera and extra lenses.

We launched at the boat ramp here in the campground and the current was slow and gentile. We got down river about 100 yards and I pulled my camera out to take some pictures. I tried for about 5 minutes and the camera would not work. Then I noticed the message on the LCD screen that said, “SD card not inserted”. Uh! Oh! I had left the SD card inside my laptop to download pictures and I forgot to put it back inside the camera.

I had thought about trying to paddle back upstream to get the card but It would have been a hard paddle to get back, having to go back around a sand bar. I decided I would just be out of luck. So now I have no pictures of our trip.

The first 4 or 5 miles of the trip we did not see any wildlife at all except for one Blue Heron that we chased for awhile down the river before he finally decided to fly the other way. The current was not quite fast enough, so we still had to paddle to keep a good pace. I was not quite sure how long it was going to take us so I tried to keep a moderate pace.

There were a lot of trees in the water and other stick ups that we navigated around with no problems. The Sea Eagle does a good job and is very stable. We did hit one shallow area where we had to get out and walk about 6 feet.

We stopped at a very nice picnic beach that had tables and all kinds of sand. We ate our lunch and enjoyed the view of the river and the solitude. We had packed several different items for our lunch and one of them was a can of smoked oyster’s. We both like smoked oysters and this batch did not taste right. We could not finish the can. Later, this made me have a queasy stomach the rest of the day and evening.

We had about two long sections were we had to paddle against a very strong headwind which had created about 18 inch waves. This was not the most fun trying not to lose ground. We still had a couple of miles to go. Eventually we found our takeout point and we were both exhausted. It was a pretty good workout. We pulled the kayak up on shore and got it all dried off and deflated. We packed it all into the cargo trailer and headed back to the campground.

Back at camp we ate dinner then decided to go up to the hot tub to help our sore muscles relax. That was a good plan except that I did not take my glasses off in the tub. I have always kept them on before but this water was pretty hot. The had steam on my glasses at one point and this ended up melting the plastic coating. Needles to say I will have to see about getting them fixed or replaced. 

We made it back to the rig and watched a little TV before calling it a night. It was a fun trip and I wish I could have gotten some pictures. Just another couple of lesson’s learned. Don’t forget the SD card and no more oysters on a day trip!

Enjoy Your Day!

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