Kimberly, Natalie, Jason, and I went on a nice three hour trip around Ewing Island in the Maumee River today. It was quite fun. We all went down the not-so-rapid rapids and enjoyed a leisurely paddle downriver. In one of the little creeks at Ewing Island we met a fellow Advanced Elements inflatable kayaker. He said: “This is the first time I’ve seen another kayaker in an Advanced Elements kayak.” We should have talked more, but it was getting dark and the mosquitos were ready for dinner.
This weird skeleton was under about 2 feet of soil. Looks like it was a big animal though. No human.
These are the rapids we went down on. Jason and I had struggled two days ago, but this time we came from upriver. And the water level in the river had increased to a point when the rapids weren’t nearly as fast as they had been on Sunday.
Natalie and Kimberly are looking at the ‘rapids’ from upstream.
Jason and I went kayaking yesterday. We made our way around Ewing Island and paddled between Ewing and Grape Islands in a little creek when we encountered some nice Class 1 rapids. Some other kayakers just came down the rapids and it was a good lesson in observation. They reported 3 ft. + depths in one part of the rapids and Jason and I decided to try to make it through the rapids and continue on upstream. My first attempt was a massive failure. My kayak spun around almost immediately. The second try, I made it. Then I tried to show Jason and made it a third and fourth time. However, Jason’s kayak handles poorly upriver anyway and there was no luck for him.
Natalie, Ron and I went on a nice day trip which was cut short by what caused this. In any case, we had a blast. The total trip length was 8.36 miles, and it was Natalie’s first day in a kayak. I had spent the previous night in a tent on one of the islands in the Maumee and we left shortly after meeting up at 9:00 am. It took us about 3.5 hours of actual paddling, and 1.5 hours of chill drifting. We met up with Torey for lunch at The Docks / Navy Bistro in downtown Toledo.
Originally we had planned on continuing on to Maumee Bay State Park, but decided to not be caught in the massive thunderstorm that had been forecast. Wise decision, it turns out.
Here’s our route:
Naturally, I have a video and some more pictures below:
Torey met up with us and took the kayak out for a spin:
Alex is currently working at the American Language Institute where he teaches ESL, functions as technology advocate, and trains students and faculty.
Before A.L.I., Alex was a doctoral fellow in Philosophy of Education, Applied Linguistics, and ESL. He also acted as technology liaison.
During the doctoral stuff, he worked on marketing for Nokia. He also supported, designed, and developed Keynote presentations for Al Gore's The Climate Project.
Before all of that, he was a windsurfing instructor in Denmark, Italy, and Germany.
