White-Water Kayaking (for beginners)

As we were waiting to leave we did some meeting and greeting. Some were good some were not so good. In the kayaking group were the two Australians I hate the most. One was this try-hard girl who baked everyone muffins. I ate a muffin, but it was overcooked and burnt (like our friendship). She also wore a caribena on a necklace and tried to show people her ‘bling’. I could tell she was no serious kayaker from the start. While, other people I talked to had been kayaking for years – they had just never been white water kayaking! Anyway, the other Australian I hated even more than the try-hard. This was the one that didn’t want to be my friend until she realized how awesome and cool I was with my white-water kayaking adventures. This girl just talks to make noise, and by the end of the trip, I could see that everyone hated her about as much as I did! Joy!

Annabel and I ended up in a car with two of the instructors and a leader of the McGill outdoors club. The instructors were cool, they were first and second year girls at McGill and Jonathan the driver was the nicest leader of the McGill Outdoors Club. When we stopped for gas, Jonathan bought us all popsicles. He also asked Annabel and I about out outdoor passions – of which I could name none. And then later he asked how I got into the McGill outdoors club, and I had to admit that really I was just told by other Australian exchange students. Earlier he explained that he has met lots of Australians through this club. Jonathan was really nice, and told us lots of stories about kayaking and adventuring in the outdoors club and how in the outdoors club you have to enjoy life, and eat cookies – cute! After about two hours of driving (as the car that was following us got lost, so we had to make a few stops) we made it to our Island Resort. Well, at least I thought we made it to our island resort. In fact we were simply a ‘canoe ride in the dark’ away. At first I thought this was some sort of sick joke – how wrong I was. We had to load all the backpacks, all the tents, and all the food for the next three days, all the kayaks – EVERYTHING into canoes! We then took many trips to paddle all this gear and ourselves over to the island – known as H₂O adventure island. The only adventure I could see at this point was that there was no toilet! After a nice team chain of passing things from the pier all the way to the camping group we set up our tents and all fell asleep.

On Saturday morning I banded with a group of girls and we tried to canoe over to the other camp-ground, where there were alleged flushing toilets. We found them… locked. I was scared for the prospect of peeing in the bush as we were warned about poison ivy! The ivy covers the entire island, except for the places were we put the tents and the tracks between tents – leaving no option but to pee in the open! The McGill Outdoors club leaders opened a drop toilet, kindly, as this was a drop toilet that they would personally have to empty. The drop was about 30 cm, so this was one smelly and disgusting toilet, but a welcome one none-the-less. After a hearty breakfast we got ourselves fitted with wetsuits, life jackets, helmets and kayaks! We learnt about wet exits and were launched onto the water. This was so exciting! We leant all the basic strokes, we practiced our wet exits, and we had races, relays and a fun, twisted version of water polo, except clearly in kayaks! This was good fun, but also a lot of arm work! We had lunch, and everyone was super hungry and ate about 3-7 sandwiches each. After this break, we were back on the water and practicing T-rescues. This is where, your boat is flipped upside down, and someone comes and hits your boat at a right angle.

You then grab the nose of the boat hitting you and flip yourself the right way up. The whole time I was imagining being T-rescued in white-water rapids. I think I’ll just wet exit my way out of there, no waiting around for someone to come and T into me, so that I can fight gravity and rapids to safety. We kayaked up to the rapids. But my first reaction to the rapids was surprise! I mean I know I signed up for white water kayaking, but I just really wasn’t expecting so much white water rapids!

We were not going to kayak down them today; we were going to swim them! The theory being, if we could swim down them we could surely kayak down them, or worst-case scenario kayak, capsize and then swim down them! A good working theory! Ian, the paddling leader hated doing the swim and so was depressed when we were all so delighted by the swim, demanded to do it again! Swimming down the rapids was the best fun! The scenery was amazing; I can’t really do it justice with my feeble descriptions! But here are some google images of the place.

I’ve added one boy on facebook who took a waterproof camera with him, so hopefully a) he accepts my request for friendship and b) puts up lots of nice photos! Anyway before we swam we got a pep-talk about where the river flow was greatest – in the middle, and this is where is rocks would be more rounded – nice to hit. Oh, the geologic glory! I felt like this was meant to be, a sport that could be worked out by geologists. We kayaked back to our beloved island and had huge quantities of pasta for tea. We played some beach volleyball and then we set up a campfire and all exhaustedly basked in its glory. At the campfire we worked out that there were only 3 people of the 27 on the whole trip from Canada, the rest of us were from America, or exchange students! Ha ha! We all retired to bed pretty early, being so exhausted from the kayaking and all. There were a few alcoholics who were keen to party, but they found each other and I presume had a top night, thankfully not a loud one!

Sunday morning we had blueberry pancakes and oatmeal! A great start to the day! We then practiced more T-rescues, which I was still unimpressed with, as when I flip I was going to wet exit and nothing else. Then, we started our journey to the rapids. We were split up into groups, and somehow, I got in a group with 9 gun guys and one girl who shared my feelings of kayaking! We carried our kayaks up to the top of the rapids. Ian, our group leader cheered “who’s ready to go”, all the guys eagerly “YEAH”, ed and me and my new buddy timidly “yeah”, ed. But it was AMAZING! I made it down the rapids without capsizing and with the biggest grin on my face! It was the most wonderful feeling ever, I was so happy. So happy, that I became over confident, and the next time I went down the rapids I capsized! I emergency exited, like I knew I would, and swam down the rapids. I lost my paddle for a bit. The instructors kept shouting, “where’s your paddle, where’s your paddle?”. To be honest, it was the last thing I was thinking about while emergency exiting, and swimming down the rapids. But I was re-united with it at the bottom, so that was lucky. The instructors grabbed my kayak and took it down for me. My buddy had also kayaked, and so had about 10 others! Some people don’t even make it to the rapids and stack in the eddies before it – poor souls! On my third ride down I made it without loosing my cool! Then we got to play in the rapids for the afternoon.

We learnt how to surf in the troughs of the rapids, and we learnt how to do ferrying and cool turns! It was fantastic. Back at the island, I could barely lift my arms to change out of my wetsuit and bathers into my dry, warm clothes. Somehow I managed. We feebly packed up our tent and lugged everything into the canoes to be paddled back to land. We strapped the kayaks to the cars, bundled everything in, and began the journey home. Annabel and I were in Jonathans car again, with a nice Australian boy, and a nice Swiss guy! I felt we did well, as some outdoors people are weird and too outdoorsy! I feel asleep straight away, and didn’t stir until we pulled up at McGill. Annabel and I made sure our stuff was in the same car as us, so we could make a speedy exit home. We fare-welled our new friends, and our new enemies and trudged home.