As a first in the history of Cheat Training, the Slow Grinding Death was going to be replaced by some fun surfing time at Rocky Island. The river level of 3.9 ft was perfect for our long boats.With the help of Zach, Ben (who had originally put his dry-top front to back, which would only count as one more of Ben's wardrobe-related anecdotes in the history of the Dream Team) managed to get dressed. There is nothing like team work! Way to go guys!
We unloaded the van, and headed to Sandy Beach. Without any warm-up, we jumped in the "jaw of the beast" by doing the hairy ferry below the fish ladder before heading down river.
Zach proved he had not lost his touch when came the time to work his way upstream against the canyon wall in extremely boily water to catch a few good surfs in the hole at S-turn. He made this hard move look like a breeze.
After a few minutes of play around S-turn we moved down to Rocky and there... what a delight it was to carve turns on this big first glossy wave! We spent over an hour there, surfing and paddling back up ceaselessly, until our muscle could hardly respond anymore. This turned out to be quite a workout!
We had Rocky for ourselves for almost the whole time we were there, and we felt quite lonely and bored, as you will be able to tell after watching those videos:
Zach Rockin' Rocky
Ben Getting a Good Taste of the First Wave
When came the time to return to Sandy Beach, we realized that the river was too low to simply attain up. We were about to experience a different type of workout. Some walking or "boat rock climbing" / knuckle dragging would be required to go back to our starting point.
For some impossible reason for Ben and Sandrine to comprehend, Zach decided to be smart and get out of his boat to simply portage "sticky spots" that were impossible to attain. Why in the world would you do that?! Ben and Sandrine, however, decided NOT to get out of their boats and to claw their way up the rocks: forward backwards, sideways but at no time their skirts would come off... NEVEEEERRR!!! Plus it is great fun to practice rock climbing with a 30-lb boat attached to your waist!!! Try it sometimes! This must have been somewhat fun for Zach to watch too... or maybe was it pathetic? He may even have shaken his head few times. :)
Finally we made it passed the shallowest part and attained up to Sandy Beach, after a short pause at a small water fall the recent rain had revived in the back channel. This is the perfect example of the little treasures the Potomac only reveals to kayakers: impossible to get a good look at this little jewel if you are not on the water. Yes... that's how privileged we are! Let us not forget about it.
This workout broke the tradition of Cheat Training in many respects but what a great time we had! It certainly put smiles on our faces. And it is not impossible that there could potentially be a slight chance that we might even do it again sometimes... maybe... Who knows?
No comments:
Post a Comment