Date: 2023-06-13
From: Riverside Campsite

To: Riverside Campsite
Miles today: 23.0
Weather: clear sky

Today started out good, but ended not so great. It was probably about 7am when I got out of my tent. I got the fire from the previous night going again and had a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. Pacer got up shortly after and after she ate, we got packed up and got on the water around 8:30am or so.The first half or so of the trip went pretty smoothly. There were still some shallow areas, but it wasn't too bad. I think we only had to get out of the boat once. The second half though was a nightmare. It felt like we were getting out because we got stuck every 500 feet. I think at one point it took us almost an hour to go less than a mile. By about 6:30, we had had enough for the day and started looking for a place to campOne of the challenging things about aqua-blazing is that there isn't a lot of information about the river. It's not like the AT trail where there are guidebooks and phone apps that give you detailed information about places to stay, miles between locations, etc. A lot of what we do while canoeing down the river is just winging it. Though I will say that for this section, we did have a somewhat decent map that I downlloaded from one of the river adventure businesses. There were also mile markers that matched the map, so we at least had a pretty good idea of where we were on the river. Anyway, we'd pull up to an island or a spot along the bank, determine whether it would make a good camping spot, and move on if it didn't work for us. After checking a few spots, we finally managed to find a decent one at about 7pm. It wasn't as good as the one yesterday. It was smaller, didn't have a fire ring, and it was a lot muddier around the banks, but we decided it was good enough and we're staying here for the night.Despite the afternoons frustrations, overall I think it was a solid day. There were also three notable events that happened.First, Pacer and I almost killed a kid in the river (a little over dramatic, but not by much). All along the river, there are spots where it flows over ledges. Nothing big, maybe six to eight inches at most. But, big enough that there are blind spots, especially with the water churning over them. Anyway, I'm in the bow of the canoe and Pacer is at the stern. We start going over one of these ledges when all of a sudden I see a leg, and just a leg, sticking out of the water in front of us. Without even thinking, I yell stop, as if that was even a remote possibility, slam my paddle into the water and we managed to get the canoe turned in time to avoid the leg and float past. Keep in mind that all of this happened within a span of about 5 seconds. When we get past the leg, we look back and there is this kid laying at the bottom of this little ledge face down in the water. For a split second we thought he might be dead, but then he lifted his head out of the water and looked at us. I don't think he was even aware of what just happened, though there was a group of his friends nearby that saw the whole thing and started laughing.The second notable event was that we saw a bunch of cows in the river along the bank. I think there were probably 8-10 of them just walking in the water along the edge. They were also pretty loud. They didn't seem amused when I tried to speak to them in their own language though.Finally, at camp, after we had gotten all setup, Pacer was sitting by the canoe when she noticed some pretty significant splashing a fair ways down the river. At first we thought it might be fish, or perhaps an animal dying or something like that. So I just kind of ignored it, but then Pacer noticed that it was getting closer. As we watched it, she asked out loud "is that a person?" Sure enough, a few seconds later it was close enough to determine that it was unmistakenly a person swimming up the river. Keep in mind that by this time it was probably about 8pm. It probably shouldn't have been such a surprise, but at the time it just seemed like an absurd occurrence. I joked that he was going to swim to our little island, tell us we couldn't camp there (there is private property all along the river), then immediately turn around and swim back to where he came from. But instead, he swam a little ways past, turned around, and swam back down the river. Pacer thinks he or she could have been training for a triathlon or something like that.Breakfast: A bagel with honey pecan cream cheese. Lunch: Snacks:First Dinner: Campbell's Chunky steak and potato soup.Second Dinner: Chicken Ramen with ham