At 11am we headed down the mountain to Tangent Outfitters. Our friends at Tangent kindly had our canoes waiting for us on the truck. A short shuttle to the Drop-in at Pembroke and we were off and in the water. Kyle and I each took a guest in the front of our canoes and Ben ran his own low rider all to himself. The water level was fairly high from the rain we'd been getting recently. There were beautiful cliffs and rock faces with caves cut out surrounding the river. We could not have asked for a more gorgeous day with no clouds in the sky and heavy sun there were even kids swimming as we floated out. The river sent us into a bit of rapids right from the start and and everyone proved to be energized and eager enough to keep our boats strait and up right. Our guests did an especially wonderful job of picking up paddles for the first time and helping dodge rocks and shallow waters.
After about an hour we stopped at a park off the the left called Whitt's for a stretch and some grub. Then we hopped back in for the last bend of our float. Our guests now felt comfortable enough to try navigating their own canoe together. Kyle and I got a chance to see what our canoes were made of besides heavy duty plastic. Over all it was a great time, our guests seemed to enjoy themselves, we saw a team of geese tackle the rapids with more grace than any watercraft. Ben was spotting turtles our along the shoreline. Next time we will definitely have some pictures to share.
Below I have my canoe right after I replaced my seats with hemlock and added a third to the middle. Also, last week I was up in West Virginia fishing and swimming in the Lost River and I found a baby Painted Turtle with a hole in its shell, so I've included a pic of the home I started creating for him. You can see my little sucker fish in the bottom of the tank, hopefully keeping things clean.
Toodles,
Greg
