Ottawa River

Here are some highlights from the paddlers today…

Carl not happy about waking up at 4am with jet lag…sucked it up and spent a great day in the sun and just loved the big water. He had great surfs and was really stoked to see close up action of Laurence getting beaten in big holes….see below!!

Cole spent a huge amount of time of time on the big wave by ‘buseater ‘ where we had lunch by the river. Initially he paddled on to the wave heaps and then just fell off. However when I came back after lunch he had it wired and was getting good spins, reverse surfs and even ‘blunts’.

Laurence dropped in to a small hole had a nice surf then fell off and hadn’t looked behind him where there was a massive hole waiting to collect him. Paddling 2metres to his left Kelly and I saw his face and the words ‘HOLY SHIT’ just as he dropped in for a beating! He loved it and it gave him the confidence to attach the massive colloseum wave which he also surfed whilst it towered above him.

Anna said paddling ‘Colloseum’ a monster rapid was awesome and surfing big waves all day. It was great to see the girls with their ‘man pants’ on ripping up on a huge river.

Kelly said surviving ‘colloseum’ a huge rapid where she got the line a little wrong and nearly took a hiding was a big highlight. She told Dale and Wendy how at the bottom of the eddy ‘coach’ ordered her to walk back up and surf a nicely formed 1 metre wave. This gave her heaps of confidence and shortly later she was happy playing in a pretty sizeable hole that was later used for the rodeo comp.

Sorry, the others went to bed before telling their highlights ;-)

OK, time for an update.

Today we paddled on the Ottawa river which is renowned for it’s big water. Everyone had a great day. Better news is that our boats are confirmed to be with us by Thursday night. This has been a huge logistical mission but hopefully will conclude soon. Jet lag is coming off slowly and the weather has been great. The low key race in Ottawa was great although borrowing boats wasn’t ideal of course. The Canadian and Australian team were incredibly generous lending boats and gear.

This afternoon we had the kayak rodeo. Half the team (let’s call them the north island pussies ;-)) was exhausted from 3 hours on the river already but the hardy south island guys sucked it up and ‘represented’. Rorbert Hervey (Foxy) placed 2^nd in the junior mens freestyle.

We are staying in a big raft/kayak lodge base. Hopefully the internet will improve and I’ll be able to get up all the great photos from Pumphouse and now Ottawa river.