May 28, 2007

May 28, 2007 – Memorial Day

Bill and I and our Australian Shepherd Buddy started out with Sue and our kayaks and our camper on Thursday night, May 24^th at about 6:00 pm. We arrived at the KOA Campground in Franklin, NY at close to 9:00 pm. On Friday morning we had a leisure breakfast and talked about the river; finally Sue and I launched from the New Milford boat access at about 10:15 am. The boat access is actually on a large shallow pond that is used for fish spawning. It was alive with large carp splashing and jumping and doing their thing. There was lots of seaweed too. We enjoyed paddling real slow through the chaos. There was a tiny shallow neck that took us out to the river.

The weather was wonderful—temperature in the 60's and slightly overcast looking like it would clear.

The river was starting to widen and was flowing nicely. There were still a lot of twists and turns. It was amazing to see so much erosion from higher water. At times the banks of the river were a couple of feet high, but at other times they were as much as sixty feet high. It was rare that both sides were the same height. Usually one bank was at least a few feet higher than the other. The erosion caused trees to become uprooted and slide down the banks and into the river. We had to be vigilant because the twists and turns caused the trees to get blocked up and limited our ability to get around them.

The stretch of river above Portlandville became less twisty and was quiet and picturesque. There were lots of birds singing and several kinds of ducks and geese swimming. In Portlandville, just after going under a bridge, a man in his backyard told us that he saw a bald eagle just ahead of us on a tree by a little inlet, but it wasn't there when we went by.

Goodyear Lake, which was formed by damming the river, was slow going. We paddled harder just to stay moving forward because of head winds. There are surprisingly shallow areas in the middle of the lake too. The portage at the dam at the end of the lake was very difficult. We attached our dollies to the rear of our kayaks and dragged them up a steep path that was pretty smooth except for occasional small rocks. I was panting when I got to the top. I thought the worst was over until I started down the other side. The kayak was trying real hard to push me down the hill. Maybe it would have been easier if I let the kayak lead and just hang onto the rope following it down the hill. There was no water going over the dam, so when Sue and I got to the bottom, there was a trickle of water that we pulled our dollied kayaks through until it finally joined the water from the spillway. We had sandwiches and water for lunch while quietly floating down the river.

The Susquehanna picked up speed after we went under an Interstate 88 bridge, and in a particularly narrow area I paddled over a submerged log that was parallel to my kayak, and the kayak rolled to the right and over. I had put an apron over the front of the cockpit in the morning to stay drier and to keep the sun off my legs, and that apron ended up around my waist. I had my paddle and a half paddle (each of us carried a half of a paddle with us in case we lost our paddle in just such an event) in one hand and I was holding onto the upside down kayak with the other hand. I couldn't touch bottom and was still moving along with the current. Sue yelled to me not to put my legs down to try to touch because I could come across a submerged boulder and could possibly break a leg. I was able to slowly head for shore. When I was standing in waist high water, I rolled the kayak over and pulled it close to shore. I tossed my paddles up on land and dragged the water-filled kayak to shallow water, but there was a steep bank and the kayak weighed a ton! So Sue paddled up to me and stayed in her kayak and held onto mine. We bailed it out with a thermos lid and a water bottle. I own a hand bilge pump, but I left it home in Pennsylvania. When the kayak had about an inch or two of water still in it, I got back in and we proceeded to the portage spot for the Oneonta Dam which was only about two miles ahead.

The portage at Oneonta Dam was very easy. I emptied my kayak, including a storage area with a lid at the back end, and then turned it over and emptied the rest of the water. There was probably five inches of water in that storage area. We dollied the kayaks and pulled them up a slight elevation and onto a path to the other side of the dam. Sue talked to a fisherman for a bit, and we were on our way again. The first couple of miles below the dam we heard the traffic on Interstate 88 which kind of ruined the ambiance. The water was fast for those miles and we had to watch. There were submerged logs that surprised us. Before and after Otego we went through a large primarily agricultural area. We went by a falling down drive-in theater and saw a few houses in downtown Otego.

At about 4:30 we approached a public boat launch about a mile below Otego. That was a pre-planned possible end of day spot for us. We just couldn't bring ourselves to stop paddling that early, so we continued on. The next boat launch site was about 9 miles downriver from there.

The next area we were paddling through was Wells Bridge. It was shallow and slow. There were lots of Canadian geese families swimming along the edge of the river. We saw strings with an adult goose leading and four to eight babies swimming right behind, and then another adult at the end of the string. They were so cute. The water had slowed down along with our progress. There was some head wind and we were getting tired. In Unadilla was an old broken dam that we paddled through. Some remaining chunks of cement were as big as four foot square. I scraped across one chunk, but didn't spring a leak.

We finally got to the public boat launch just below Unadilla at 8:30 pm. I had called Bill to meet us there, and he was on the shore with a light because it was getting dark. We accomplished 37 miles that day. In 10 hours. It was so good to see Bill on the shore! We loaded up the kayaks into our truck and drove back to the campground. Sue and I had some chili and showered and we talked to Bill of our adventures and we all went to sleep.

Friday we got an earlier start. We were on the river at the boat launch below Unadilla by 8:30 am. It was another beautiful slightly overcast day in the high 60's and promising to be sunnyand warm. Halfway between Unadilla and Sidney the river splits and we we directed by signs put up by the General Clinton Regatta people to take the left side, but the middle was so low that we got hung up on a gravel bar and had to climb out and walk the kayaks across to the deeper water. Just above Bainbridge a railroad trestle goes across the river and over an island in the middle. We took the right side and encountered eddies and narrow shoots. There were downed trees and sharp turns which caused strong currents that turned us in circles at times. When we got to the General Clinton Park in Bainbridge, which is where the 70 mile race that was being run on Memorial Day would end, we pulled up to a float and climbed up to the park for a look see. There were people selling racing canoes that were made of graphite. Those canoes weighed about four and a half pounds. Our Pungo's weighed 45 pounds. The racing canoes also cost about eight times the cost of our Pungo's. We also saw slightly used racing paddles that cost as much as our kayaks.

Well, after about 15 minutes of sightseeing we were on our way again. We had used the maps put out by the Regatta people to follow from Cooperstown to Bainbridge. I also acquired a fold-up brochure from an outfitter in Binghamton, New York that mapped several day trips on the Susquehanna for the Broome County area (which I later found out was published in the 1980's). The furthest upriver day trip map started in Afton, NY which we thought was about six miles down river from Bainbridge. It actually was more like ten miles. So that was the unchartered part of our day. It ended up being uneventful and slow.

We went through some beautiful country. The river banks weren't very high and we could see longer distances. We didn't see anyone else on the river for miles and miles, though. Because of so many shallow areas, the only safe water vehicles are canoes and kayaks. It's very nice to paddle along relatively silently. We could sneak up on wildlife easier. We saw lots of Canadian geese, some mergansers and mallards, and one ring neck duck. We didn't see any great blue herons. I think I saw one kingfisher. We had an occasional fish jump near us. Again, we saw a lot of erosion. There was one very high bank on the right that had a major dirt and tree slide. There were campers up on the top of the bank right near the edge. The owners were very lucky that their campers didn't end up sliding down the sixty feet to the river.

Once in a while we hit some shallow areas that we scraped a little. And occasionally we found fast water and some trees tipped into the river. At this point, the river was wider, probably averaging forty to fifty feet across, and there were few blockages that we couldn't get around. But the nearer to shore we paddled, the more submerged logs we found, so we stayed in the deeper parts as much as we could. The maps we were using even showed which side of large islands we should go around on. We went through agricultural lands and very small towns.

Around 4:00 we met up with two men in a canoe and started talking to them. One man's name was Rick Shoemaker and I forget the other's name, but he was being shown the river and shown the art of canoing by Rick. Rick told us that he has canoed the complete 444 miles of the river and he directed us to some websites for more maps. We chatted and paddled for probably a half hour. We had decided to get off the river at the Windsor, NY boat access and he said it was about three to five miles ahead. That was good news because we were tired. I had developed a few blisters too. Our shoulders and upper arms were aching. Sue had hurt her lower back a few days before the weekend, and it was complaining very loudly to her. I called my husband and told him to meet us at Windsor in about an hour and a half. The canoe went ahead of us when we stopped to make the phone call. We caught up a while later and asked again how far it was to Windsor and he said it was just around the corner. He then slowed down and we passed him. Well, I think he was confused because we paddled until 6:30 and finally arrived at the boat access.

About 45 minutes before we got done, we came upon an extended family of Canadian geese along the right hand side of the river. I paddled away from that side, and as I was doing that, a very noisy and large adult goose chased me and honked nastily until he decided I wasn't a threat. Then he flew over me and back to shore. I thought he was going to attack me in the kayak. In the meantime Sue continued along the right hand edge by the rest of the family which consisted of three adults and eight to ten little ones. These geese were loudly swimming and running ahead of her. They probably kept that up for thirty yards until they finally headed inland. We were unwelcome intruders.

We again racked up ten hours in the kayaks. And I don't think we had gotten out of them for the last three hours. I had a time just getting upright and out of my kayak. I had to stand still for a bit before I dared try to walk. Rick and his friend arrived at the access a few minutes after us, and he figured we covered probably 38 miles in the ten hours. That's a pretty good rate!

Sue and I have decided, though, that in the future we will limit our paddling to 25 to 30 miles a day and we'll enjoy the river much more. Because of scheduling and such, we won't get back on the river until the weekend before July 4^th, if then.