the race - Part two - Carmacks to Kirkman Creek

We were woken an hour before our fixed set off time at 23.50 and it was light and hot.  We got ready for the next stretch and were 20 minutes late leaving due to general faff.  Back in a clean boat with fresh water and all restocked on food.

I don't think I have ever started a days paddling at 23,50 but we set off knowing that we would shortly come to the notorious five finger rapids.

 We had decided to follow pre race advice given by Joe which was to not follow the main tongue of water down to the chunky standing waves but instead to stay to the left of them and then head right.  As we were lining up at the top to have a look we got a little too far right and were caught in a VERY nasty recirculating eddy that we had not noticed.  We were extremely lucky not to flip and once out of the eddy we headed down but didn't go quite as far right at the end and so we ploughed through a couple of the standing waves.  This wasn't a problem and we were on our way to the next obstacle - Rink Rapids.

 We hit rink about 1/2 hour later and again followed the advice we had been given which was to stick to the right hand bank - again it worked and we were through nicely.  On the approach we had seen that the rapid itself was big and bumpy but with no rocks it would probably just have been a bumpy ride.

On down the river we were island skipping to pick the shortest route and getting smart picking our way through as the river picked up speed.  Too smart.  We caught an eddy line at the wrong angle, lost our balance and were unable to keep the boat upright and so it was swimming time.  Esther quickly took the bowline and after blowing her whistle, started swiming for the mid river islands with me pushing the boat.  Boat 50 who we had just overtaken were soon with us and we had the boat upright and were bailing the water out of it.  Boat 66 (the remaining ladies double canoe) also came to help steady us as we both got back in and continued bailing.  Boat 50 then stayed with us whilst we got to a shore to do a full change of the boat and they wanted to check we were paddling ok.  We had stayed incredibly warm despite our swim but the weather was about to turn against us.




Thunder, fork lightening and rain - we were soon soaked (again),  We even saw snow!












We decided that we would go in at Minto where there was a monitoring point to have a good sort of the boat - when we got to Minto there was no manned point only the barge ramp but we got off there in any event for a warm drink and to have a sort of the boat.








Back on the water we pressed on to Fort Selkirk, a former trading post.  They had a warming room and we headed in for a 1/2 hour stop and warm up.  Half an hour was soon up though and we were off again towards Kirkman Creek.  It took forever to get there and we finished the day off with team Head First - the final stretch into Kirkman Creek took forever as the rock formations seemed to keep on repeating themselves.




Ar Kirkman Creek it was time for a 3 hours mandatory stop, soup and a sandwich and the worst ever toilet. A pit toilet that needed a step to get to the seat, a seat that was loose and a smell that meant once you had used it you would opt for the woods next time.