The weekend just gone, I took my 10 year old son, Evan, for his first solo paddle in his own canoe. My brother in law Steve joined us too. I bought Evan a Venture Ottowa 13'4" canoe a few months ago, and this was his first chance to paddle it after I'd done a few mods ( installed airbags, raised the seats and added painters ).
Evan has solo paddled my Novacraft Cronje 17' for a few short instances in the past, so he knew the basics. This time though, I told to just change sides to steer, as it was more important for him to get a feel for his canoe rather than concentrate on perfecting steering strokes for the time being. This became apparent as it was quite windy on the loch on our outward journey, with a fair sized swell. The pics don't really show this however, as I waited until we were in a more sheltered place before taking them.
Evan did really well though, and didn't seem concerned by the swell at all. Unlike me, I had my heart in my mouth every time it picked up his canoe and he semi-surfed down it.
When we arrived at my favourite camping spot, Steve and I got the hammocks set up while Evan collected some firewood, when he wasn't distracted by climbing trees.
Spot the boy:
As darkness approached, I got Evan to de-bark some green sticks for our grill, and we lit the fire with a bit of birchbark and made some coals for the BBQ.
After dinner, the fire was built up with again and Steve and I had a few scoops around the fire. I'd bought some Soda Stream lemonade concentrate and added it to freshly filtered loch water for Evan, who complained bitterly that he was the only one on the trip who wasn't allowed beer.
We all had a good lie in the following morning, and had just finished breakfast when we heard a loud rumbling coming from the south. We were all amazed to see two Lancaster bombers flying low along the loch. Spectacular, but unfortunately none of us got any pics.
We then packed up and had a pleasant paddle back to our start point in much less windy, but still breezy conditions.
Cheers, Michael.
Evan has solo paddled my Novacraft Cronje 17' for a few short instances in the past, so he knew the basics. This time though, I told to just change sides to steer, as it was more important for him to get a feel for his canoe rather than concentrate on perfecting steering strokes for the time being. This became apparent as it was quite windy on the loch on our outward journey, with a fair sized swell. The pics don't really show this however, as I waited until we were in a more sheltered place before taking them.
Evan did really well though, and didn't seem concerned by the swell at all. Unlike me, I had my heart in my mouth every time it picked up his canoe and he semi-surfed down it.
When we arrived at my favourite camping spot, Steve and I got the hammocks set up while Evan collected some firewood, when he wasn't distracted by climbing trees.
Spot the boy:
As darkness approached, I got Evan to de-bark some green sticks for our grill, and we lit the fire with a bit of birchbark and made some coals for the BBQ.
After dinner, the fire was built up with again and Steve and I had a few scoops around the fire. I'd bought some Soda Stream lemonade concentrate and added it to freshly filtered loch water for Evan, who complained bitterly that he was the only one on the trip who wasn't allowed beer.
We all had a good lie in the following morning, and had just finished breakfast when we heard a loud rumbling coming from the south. We were all amazed to see two Lancaster bombers flying low along the loch. Spectacular, but unfortunately none of us got any pics.
We then packed up and had a pleasant paddle back to our start point in much less windy, but still breezy conditions.
Cheers, Michael.
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