by Dorothy Van Esbroeck
The hot, humid days of summer were here and I was happy to be going out paddling. The goal of this trip was to safely further develop kayaking skills in a group setting. With all the pre-trip e-mails over, I was eager to finally be meeting the participants.
At Snug Harbour, I met Harold with his kayak packed. What could be more impressive than someone who arrives earlier than I do? He was followed by Paul and then Mike, a welcome addition to the group, being a guest from an Ottawa kayaking club. We were ready to leave at noon; however we stayed put and ate our lunch first.
After finding a small sandy beach on the eastern side of Franklin, we camped close by and then returned to the sandy beach area to practice some skills. Our skills may have improved, but more importantly we had fun splashing and laughing. Imagine the fun of standing in the water and holding another person’s boat or their life jacket, putting their boat on edge and them having to high or low brace to right it again. Later some of us half filled our cockpits with water and tried the same skills. It was a great activity to get used to how unstable a kayak is with water in the cockpit.
Before long, it was time to paddle back to Snug to meet Anne, who we had agreed to meet at 6:30 p.m. I was not wearing a watch so I relied on my GPS, the digital cameras present or Harold to know the time. It was a late supper and then back to our tents. Not having brought in my GPS, I don’t know when it started raining. The two nights of this trip were so warm I didn’t even need a sleeping bag, but at least it would be useful if I needed to soak up any water that might come in the tent.
The next day was overcast when we headed out for a paddle around Franklin. Then the rain came and went and came and went, but no thunder or lightning. Mike, a whitewater kayaker turned sea kayaker, enjoyed the waves when he could, like on some of western side of Franklin when we weren’t in some of the sheltered passages I chose for us to explore. The wind died right down leaving us with just good swells around the southwestern tip of the island. We didn’t see many boaters or kayakers out and about.
Back at our campsite, there was more swimming since it was already a few hours since our lunch swim. Mike and I managed to finish supper before it started to rain; Harold finished his under the tarp. When the thunder and lightning started, we left the tarp and headed for our tents. This was around 6:30. I did have my marine radio with me in the tent. Often I only listen when the reports come at 3:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., but there are updates more often with severe weather. I heard an 8 o’clock warning of a very severe line of thunderstorms from Goderich to southern Georgian Bay moving east with 50-knot winds. I felt reassured that we would probably miss the worst of the storm since we were farther north. This was the night of a very damaging storm with tornadoes farther south and east. When the storm ended around 9:30, Paul started cooking, while Anne decided not to bother with cooking that night.
The next morning, Anne was up well before sunrise with her tripod taking pictures every 7 minutes for a photography course assignment on light. We spent another hour or two doing drills as on the first day, as well as rescues and standing up in our boats (while they were braced). By then my tent (and sleeping bag) was dry and ready to be packed up. Most of us had our IKEA bags for use on shore, but I wish I had taken just one picture of the person with the blue IKEA bag strapped on the back of his/her yellow kayak when we left to paddle back to Snug.
I really enjoyed having a group size of 5 for this trip. Thanks to everyone, especially those who were on their first GLSKA trip, for a great time made even more memorable by the exciting weather.