Forget the Sea. This is the River!

We watched the new "This is the Sea, Part 2" DVD a few weeks ago. It kind of got us motivated. You see, the DVD highlights all these hotshot sea kayakers as they play in the tide races of Georgia, Anglesey, and British Columbia, and well it looked like just plain fun. Of couse anyone who knows the Chesapeake knows that we don't really have that kind of water around here. Or do we???

After a day of solid rain, the river level on the Little Falls gauge was up to 4.4 feet. That is an in-between level for our whitewater boats. Too low for Center Chute and to high for Maryland Chute. The whitewater boaters take "long boats" out at this level so we just decided to take our own version of a long boat out.

We called Ian K. and he was game. When we got the boats to the put in we passed our first group of whitewater paddlers who just looked at us like we were nuts. What is it? When we paddle whitewater the sea kayakers think we are crazy and when we paddle sea kayaks the whitewater boaters think we're crazy. Don't they know its all good!

We made fast work of getting up to Maryland Chute. Dave headed straight up and tucked into the eddy above the chute itself. I took a little more time and after cutting across the current a couple of times to get the feel for the moving water followed. Boy, paddling upstream is hard work! We continued to work our way up river from there. Ducking into eddies, doing peel-outs, surfing some of the smaller waves and ferrying from side to side on the river.

After a bunch of work, we got to Wet Bottom. After instructions from Dave to just "paddle hard up stream, don't get washed below the second wave, and roll if you flip", he took off. Of course he made it look easy. Ian followed with another perfect ferry. My turn. I took off and immediately got blown down river. I circled back for another try. Same result. This continued for a couple more tries. Finally I lined up perfectly and paddled like crazy and actually made the eddy. I couldn't believe it! From there it was on to Rocky.

Rocky Island if you have never been there has really big waves when the river level is at 4.4 ft. Dave estimated that the big rollers were probably five feet high or more. That didn't daunt him however. He ferried over and caught a great surf which then kicked him off to the left. He flipped on the second wave but rolled right up like a pro. The couple of whitewater guys who were there said "Hey I didn't know you can roll those things." Ian was next and had some great rides also. On one ride Dave ferried out again, caught the wave, surfed for awhile and again flipped below the wave. He tried and tried to roll up. Finally on attempt six he made it. Turns out long boats have issues when the waves are steep and very close together. When he was in the trough his bow and stern were stuck in the waves in front and behind him. But typical Dave said no to swimming and was eventually able to roll up.

All in all a great day. The water was super challenging and it was great practice. We will definitely be doing more of this. Who needs the sea, this is the river!

Check out all the pictures on our trip reports page by clicking on the photo within this note above.

Surfing the Potomac

4/12/06 -- What a day! Today Dave and I decided to do a little exploring. We had heard about a couple of paddle-in backcountry camp sites on the Potomac River up in Chicamuxen Creek but so far had never had a chance to check them out. Thinking that we might lead a trip there this winter we decided to go scouting.

To keep milage on the short side, we decided to launch from Leesylvania State Park in Woodbridge, VA. The first thing we noticed at Leesylvania was that the winds were much stronger than they had been at home -- blowing out of the South at upwards of 20+ knots. Off we paddled head into the wind with the waves continuing to grow. At the point where we crossed the river the waves were a solid 2 feet with the occasional 3 footer thrown in. Not much fun to paddle into but I had my fingers crossed that the winds would hold so we could do some surfing on the way back.

Once we turned up into the creek the winds totally subsided and we were greeted by bald eagles, comerants, osprey and a whole flock of little black ducks. Using the go-to function on the GPS we found the otherwise invisible campsites. These will be great for winter camping but I think the bugs and the poison ivy would make them pretty miserable in the summer.

After a quick snack we headed back to Leesylvania. Back on the river we were again greeted by 2-3 footers but this time going with us. We caught some great surfs. My GPS registered a top speed of 8.5 mph and I was averaging 6.5 mph! What took us over an hour on the way out took about 40 minutes on the way back. Its a rare day we get to enjoy waves like these on our normally calm waters.

Here we go...

Well, this rant is supposed to be a great record of what we have been doing in our boats; Sea Kayaks, Play Boats, Surf Skis, or whatever form we chose in the future. It is only a shame that we cannot keep consistent records of what we have done before. I guess that is what makes the past, the past. And what makes the future so much fun. For some of the things that came before, you can look in on the Trip Reports page from time to time. Some of our older trips should appear up there soon.