I'm going to go more in depth in the next post, with the things we saw, what we ate, etc. The main topic I'm going to talk about in this post, however, is rapids.
The rapids on the James aren't as near as bad in other rivers. But that does not mean you shouldn't pay attention. If you're a beginner kayaker (like I am), this is the river for you. However, I learned my lesson the hard way.
You see, I had just caught a fish (a total of two were caught on the entire trip. There was a lot of biting, but the darn fish would not stay on!), and I wasn't paying much attention to anything else. Feeling invincible, I went over the rapids without scanning the water, went over the rocks, filled my kayak with water, and had to float ashore to bail water out (there were no casualties, except for losing my fishing pole and my clothes were all wet with no change of clothes!) Only 10% of the rocks show up above the water. I pushed myself into the water, ended up backward speeding down the river, hit more rocks, and had to go to shore to bail out water a SECOND time. This was pretty annoying, considering the fact that we still have 5 miles to go and I don't have a fishing pole to fish with on a fishing trip.
All in all, however, the trip was awesome. I'm hoping we can go again next year (this is a yearly thing). In my next post, I'll post some pics and all that good jazz!
*All you wannabe pro kayakers---WATCH THE RAPIDS. Don't end up like I did and lose you're fishing pole because you weren't paying attention!!!*
As a side note: after that, I did pretty well going through rapids, and they were worse than the ones I crashed on.
#Learnin from mistakes
#Watch out for rocks
Just to clarify - the section of the James we went down (Scottsville - New Canton) isn't so bad for rapids. That is NOT the case further downriver! And you did pretty well once you decided not to simply point your kayak south and cross your fingers! ;)
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