Regatta

I took a drive yesterday to watch Dad take off on a canoe & kayak regatta. There was thunder and lightning the previous night, and Saturday was still rather overcast and gloomy. Winds whipped along at 20-30 mph, but the organizers decided to carry on anyway.

As I stood on a peninsula and waited to get Dad's taking-off picture, I recognized a former Sunday school teacher's husband paddling along in his canoe. In his floppy hat and vest, he paused and looked up at me. "Wheech way to Amereeca?" he smiled.

One man in a yak like Dad's lost his hat for a moment. Whipping his arm back to grab it, he also lost the correct placement for his center of gravity--and flipped. Dad tried to help but couldn't slow down enough to do anything in the current current. He pointed out a less-steep bank a little farther along, and suggested the guy float along until he reached a better place to land and empty his kayak.

As I left the takeoff point to visit B in her nearby town, I heard geese overhead. Looking upstream, I watched them touch down into the water.

The camraderie among the yakkers and canoers was encouraging. The start of the event fostered conversation among participants and bystanders; I could have asked anyone anything and become engaged in interesting conversation. Driving to a downstream bridge, I found myself following a van towing canoes. Behind that was an SUV with watercraft mounted on top. Not knowing exactly where I was going, I started following them. A few gravel roads later, we reached the river and stopped. It turned out that the SUV driver had started randomly following the van driver, as well. We chatted a bit with an elderly man who was already at the point and had watched a number of paddlers pass, then one of them told me how to get to the bridge I was looking for.

I found the bridge (as well as an interrupted fisherman--far left in paddler's picture) and had a perfect 10 minute wait in the wind until Dad glided along.

Last night, a thunderstorm. Today, more rain. Tomorrow, a little yakking for me?