INTERESTING TIMES

The level at the high bridge putin was 5.32. That's medium, or maybe medium-high. It was just right. The group was 10 kayakers including Joey, Craig and Michael that I've paddled with before. Several of the group were men who'd been in the "fast group" on Opal yesterday, or were just plain old new. Ken, Ben who works at Nike, Bradley, etc. I rode with and followed Bruce. Joey instructed both Craig and I to follow him, and when I told him that on the ride up it got him going. He's a cell biologist at age 60 with an illustrious career that discovered (with others of course) kinesin which is this very cool little walking protein that goes up a track inside our neurons. Axonal transport. He was interesting to follow on the river, reminded me somewhat of Dick with the way he would give instructions and then set out to lead. He wasn't easy to follow, either. I could never tell what he was going to do next, and he would paddle really hard to make difficult moves. One thing is for sure, if you start your beginners out following him, they will get to be better boaters fast. After a while I learned to hang back and see generally what channel he was headed down, and then read the close up water for myself. I cut a lot of corners and took one tenth as many strokes, and enjoyed it more. Funny how different people's river styles can be. I guess I'm lazy.
( about the river and more random train of consciousness )

This squirt spot above is not far from Portland, on the Washougal. There's another good squirt spot on the Clackamas.
I just acquired a squirt boat, and this is what it is designed to do.
I think it was made by Jim Snyder.

On the Klickitat River in south central Washington state, in a river kayak. My Wildwasser Embudo, to be specific. Looks like it's all going to fit. And it's raining this morning. Here we go!!!

This is the same piece of music as he used for the previous post, so if you hate the music, don't play it. Dick filmed this otter family fishing and eating their catch on the rocks behind his house. It's stuff like this that confirms for me that I want to live on the crick. Somewhere. Some gurgle or cascade, or even better, small clean river. But back to otters. I might get a chance to study otters this coming summer, and I was already interested. RIVER otters, not ocean, they are different. Know anything about them?

*created new tag for otters, all previous mentions not tagged

We three babes of Oregon went. K & S had not met before, but we were a sympatico group. I love to boat with women because it is relatively noncompetitive with laughs to spare. Twas a lovely dripping drizzly day. We chuckled when the rain started. Kayaking is just as fun in the rain as not; one must be prepared for total immersion. We did a four mile class II section from milepost 7 to a semi-developed takeout. The water was medium--you could see where it had been much higher by the strainers. There was a spiral of black PVC hanging from high in a tree that we deduced was from a culvert that had unravelled in a flood.