Saturday, September 24, 2016

25 August, 2016 (Kolin O'Keefe)

Today was our first long canoe paddle of 12 miles, a bit of a rough paddle but we still made it to our destination. It was my first time as the navigator and even though it was a bit nerve wrecking, it was still an enjoyable experience all the same. We made it to a small little sand bar stretch and set up our campsite. After a knot lesson by Mariah and an accident prevention lesson, we had the rest of the time till debrief free to ourselves. I decided to do my first set of laundry on the trip, scrubbing my sweaty, stinky clothes in the lake. I guess lake water smells better than sweaty gym shorts. I saw Alex, Cody, and Ryan go off fishing while as tempted as I was to fish, the hot day made me want to go for a swim. Joel, Mariah, Nick, Liv, Tyler and myself decided to take advantage of this and took a dip. The cold water felt so relaxing on the strained muscles and it was definitely added a spring to my step. After a delicious supper of a shell noodles and some sort of sauce concoction brewed by none other than Jeff the Jazzy wizard chef, we went into our debrief and we ended with Emily’s life story that had all sorts of unexpected twists, and even more unexpected answers to our ridiculous questions. Finally, everyone went off to do their own things while Nick, Cody, and I discussed and created our initial LOW plan for our week as LOW’s. There is a lot more to it than I anticipated but I am ready for the challenge. On one final note, the parks that stuck out to me the most this day were the foggy morning start, the swim in the afternoon, and watching a few shooting stars streak the sky as we were creating our LOW initial schedule. I have never seen a sky as clear and as bright as the Canadian night sky our of all places I have ever visited. I am so thankful to be here and as my skills improve, I am sure I will come to a point where I fall into a routine, fall in love, and never want to leave this place behind. The reality we will have to leave it behind since we are paddling down a river.


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