The girls got a chance to experience some big water this weekend. We cruised down to Peoria Ill. to meet up with Hannah and Tom for some Team Race to Heal training on the Illinois river.
Lots to see, from barges, bloated Asian carp to sea planes. It was pretty cool as the sea plane did a couple of "touch and goes". The Illinois river was much bigger then I envisioned... there are areas that open up into some pretty large lakes.
This would be the last of the glass like water. Two hours into the paddle, the wind picked up dramatically. On the nose we had gusts to 40 mph. The weather dude needs to be slapped briskly. -
Tom and I were in a C2 - waves over the bow.. the old up one over one through one. Paddle paddle paddle....bail bail bail...
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The girls did outstanding. 5.5 hours of hard paddling. With the wind coming out of the south, it was really stacking up the waves. We had three foot rollers with very steep wave faces.
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After a 7 hour paddle, we were all pretty much spent. There is lot of stress when your chit- lands are on their own in big water. Very nerve racking. Quoting Boo, "All I knew was we had to keep the paddles in the water and the boat moving."
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Seriously, I don't think there is too much open water these girls couldn't paddle. They have experienced quite a bit on these training runs; very impressive indeed. - The Capt'n
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