Kayak News

Last Saturday the 3 May we met a group of kayakers from Indy and Ft. Wayne at the US-327/US-20 Pigeon River parking area with the intent of going down river to Mongo.  The day started nicely enough with good paddling temperatures in the mid 60’s.  We got started about 11:00 and planned about 4 hours for the trip.

Things did not work out as planned.  Over the winter lots of trees had fallen across our river path.  About half we could jump or pushed over by some of the faster paddlers (and kind folks).  The other half it was in and out of the kayak, pulling it through the muddy banks and around the obstacle and then back into the water for another 1/4 mile and the next obstacle. 

About a third of the way through the trip the kayak in front of me got stuck going across a submerged log.  As luck would have it the avenue across the log was only about 4 ft wide and there was not room for both of us.  The current took me and I was abeam the river and the tree.  As I hit the tree I could not lean into the tree and I did not have the experience in the boat to bring the up river side up (since I could not do the lean) and in less than a second I was upside down. 

The current under the tree was intense but after a few tries I found purchase of the sandy river bottom and could stand up.  By then my paddle was floating down the river and my kayak weighed 500 # full of water. 

SAM made it through the whole course without a dunking but we had to really fight the last mile straight against the wind of 20-25 knots and falling temperatures.  By this time it was 1700 hrs and we were cold, tired and cranky but after a seemingly never ending trip we made it and put our kayaks on this nice trailer someone had built.  By the time we reached the site where we started we had bought the trailer.  We emptied the trailer and hooked it up to the truck and took off pleased as punch.

Now we are going through the endless and inane process of getting a homemade trailer licensed.  That will be another story another day.