90 Practice Run

Today I tagged along with the NNYP club for a day of portages and paddling. In short, I needed to learn where the portages were in order to ready myself for the 90.

I started with paddling with a stock canoe around 10:30ish. We talked and paddled to the first portage, where it was clear that I was *too* slow on the portages.

An analogy can be made to the motion of a slinky ... they would leave me behind on land and I would spring forward on the water easily catch and pass them. We did the 'slinky dance' until Brown's track portage. When I put on at Brown's track, the canoe was long gone and I couldn't tell if they'd paddled up- or down-stream. So ... I sat on the dock and waited for nearly 1/2 hour before getting directions from Kim. Kim, Joan, and my wife were setting up a pit stop for the lagging war-canoe.

I then got to Racquette lake. I was alone and desperate for directions, so I talked to some fishermen. It turns out that they share a difference of opinion as to what constitutes a 'cove'. [They told me to, " ... paddle along until you get to the second cove ... the second cove will be the marion river ...". Incidently, the second cove by leads you into another gigantic lake.] Nevertheless, after about an hour, I finally spotted Bob [a great guy and good stock boater]. I followed Bob into the Marion River and slowly made my way to the final portage.

Alas, the war canoe finally caught up and I raced them to the take out. They were slightly faster on the portage [my kayak weighs 40+ lbs], but I had the advantage on the water. I beat them to the take out! Woot! Woot!