The Summer Trip

Well another trip has come and gone for CUKC, but as always, it was an amazing trip. It was full of booty beers, sweet surfs, smiles, and some good swims 🙂

We stayed at Owl Rafting for the weekend with our good old exec Juraj. It was a great location for camping because it provided breakfast in the mornings, free lemonade all day, good night parties, and good campsites. From the campsite we only had a short drive and then we were at the river ready to put-in!

The rapids were enjoyed by all during the weekend. We had some people run McCoy’s Rapids and punching straight through Phil’s Hole…way to go guys!! Then we had one of our awesome beginners go right into Horseshoe, get flipped a couple times, flipped back over with half his skirt on and surfing without a paddle! You’re our hero Emmett!! Awesome moment that we wish we had on camera. We got some good surfs and relaxation at Babyface, but eventually the rafts got annoying enough that we headed downstream.

Events downstream were amazing for the rest of the weekend as CUKC saw huge improvements in the beginners and intermediates that were on the trip. We had some great first surfs on Garb (Mitch, Emmett, and Alberto!!!) which were also on video for the proof. We had some of our new beginners also surf Pushbutton (way to go Bryana); and we had everyone make it through Normans rapid without flipping. Very good job everyone!

There were also some good swims, but the best were the intentional swims without bailing from the kayaks: We stopped at Braindusche for a little while and had some people pencil diving in to see how far the current would take them. For those who don’t know, this rapid consists of whirlpools that suck whole kayaks underwater, so you can imagine the downtime someone would get diving into the whirlpools….especially while holding rocks to weigh them down (Juraj and Mitch you guys are crazy!!)

Our other good swim was in the pour-over at the Garborator wave. Again, this is fast moving water coming over a rock (pour-over to be exact :p) and if you get close to it, you’ll be sucked under and pop up downstream a bit further. It was good fun, and good practice for seeing how a undertow/hole feels.

All in all, good weekend as usual and we hope to have many more. Upcoming next is our trip back up to the Ottawa River for the King of the Clubs weekend on Sept 2nd. Hopefully many can make it, but if not, we’ll keep you updated with another story 🙂

Until then, Paddle Hard CUKCers!!!