Traverse Area Paddle Club

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Trip Reports

August 22 - Sturgeon

Published on 8/22/2011

Three of us in kayaks launched mid morning on the Sturgeon River. John, Lois and Tracie soon fetched up under a bridge to wait out the unpredicted rain shower. Luckily the weather steadily improved throughout the afternoon with big fluffy clouds and sunshine. A blue heron gave us quite a show with a couple of low altitude fly-bys.

We had more company on the river than expected for a weekday, everyone was very friendly and well wishes for a great day on the river were exchanged. Tracie was elevated from "mad" river skills to "crazy insane" river skills status when her paddle struck an underwater obstruction causing her to collide with a fallen tree ripping the paddle out of her grasp. She wasn't able to both grab the paddle and keep the boat from taking on water so the paddle floated off down the river. She managed to work herself off and around the downed tree then hand paddled to an eddy which Lois pointed out. Lois helped by getting John to chase after the paddle. He was able to retrieve it and surged back upstream to return it allowing Tracie to ferry over to a gravel bar to bail out her boat. Tracie commented she finally got to use the pump she has been carrying around all summer! Tracie is grateful she was saved from dumping by the good kayaking lessons learned from John and Lois. Quite an exciting trip for another "no longer a Sturgeon virgin".

Written by Tracie

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