Sunday, the official calendar first day of summer, presented itself neither summary nor appealing for paddling. The morning was cloudy, gloomy, and rainy and a low turnout for the Salmon River Reservoir paddle was expected. As it often does, the CNY volatile weather surprised us: despite of being overcast, it was warm and there was not a drop of rain throughout the entire paddle. We didn’t have to worry about getting wet. Well, most of us didn’t have to worry…

      We were wrong about the turnout as well. 19 paddlers made the trip to Redfield to enjoy our weekly paddle: Lynn and Carl – on their very first kayaking adventure, Jack, Pam, Ellen, Sandy, Dave L., Dave F., Bob, Rick and Cindy, Anne and Roger, Tish and Gene, Chuck, Kim B., and Aneta and Robert. Given the windy conditions we paddled the smaller portion of the Reservoir that was somewhat protected from the wind and motorboat traffic.

      This was an adventurous and meandering course that took us through some open choppy waters, claustrophobically thick reeds, sharp branches sticking out of the water, shallow parts of the creek where a few people got stuck, and a swift current that pushed some boats sideways onto the banks prickly with brush. We paddled as far as we could until it became too shallow to go on. Then we turned around and stopped for a break on a stony shore full of spiders and black flies. But this was only the beginning…

      Shortly after, one of the old timers took a swim while getting out of her kayak. We ate our snacks while doing our best not to become snacks ourselves to the ample bug life occupying our rest area. During the take off, another paddler got stuck in the muck in her flip-flops. Once we all got back out, we proceeded back to the open area of the reservoir. It was a little windy, but all was well until we had a second capsizing of another club member, sporting a shiny scratch-free bright bottom of his boat. The pit crew arrived on the scene immediately, making sure he was fine and picking up his belongings. Gene towed the swimmer to shore while two others towed his water filled boat. With everybody’s help the water was pumped out and the paddler was back in his craft. All things considered, he did extremely well. We returned safely having completed 4.4 miles.

      After loading up we went to the Hayloft Restaurant for dinner. I don’t know if they had any hay, but they did have several animal carcasses hanging on the walls and watching you eat. All in all, a very pleasant place!

      Thank you very much for making personal sacrifices to provide your blood thirsty writer with exciting report facts! Rest assured that no humans or animals were hurt in writing of this report.

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