Back on the Water

Our early melt in April got my hopes up. Unfortunately, the weather didn't fully cooperate.

Weekends saw rain or cold temperatures, so our kayaks remained secured to the wall in our garage. It wasn't until the May long weekend that we were finally able to get back on the water.

DW and I just wanted to go for a short paddle and not stray too far from home. Water levels were still a bit high and we didn't want to go somewhere that could possibly have us turn around again, so we opted to drive less than 20 minutes from home and paddle on the Jock River.

We've paddled on this part of the river many times over the years but this time, I brought my drone and my Insta360 camera with me. I don't know why I haven't made a video about this river before but felt that I would start our seventh season of paddling here.

Initially, I wanted to paddle as close to the town of Richmond as possible. Starting from Terry Carisse Park, just south of the village of Fallowfield, it's about a seven-kilometre trek each way. In previous paddles, we've never been further than about halfway, opting to turn around at the Cambrian Road bridge, in Twin Elm, another tiny village along the Jock, between Fallowfield and Richmond.

Victoria Day was beautiful: sunny, not too hot or too cool. The dock at Terry Carisse Park was out, making it easy to get into the water, though it is a tad high for gracefully entering the kayak.

Because we had been out with our cameras on the previous two mornings, I opted to leave mine at home but DW had hers with her. It was her first time in her kayak with her new camera and she wanted to see how easily it was to wield in her boat because it's much larger than her old Canon M50 and zoom lens.

My Sony α6700 with the 70–350mm lens is smaller than my Nikon D7200 was with the 70–300mm lens (both of which I no longer have).

DW spent almost as much time shooting birds as she did paddling, so it took more than two hours to get to the Cambrian Road bridge, in Twin Elm, where we decided to turn around, and back. We'd come back another time to paddle all the way to Richmond.

You can see our paddling adventure in my latest YouTube video. It's less than 13 minutes long so take a break and give it a view.

Our first kayaking excursion of the season was a good one and we have many more planned for this year. If you like my videos, please subscribe to my channel. I still have only a modest number of followers and could definitely use more.

Happy Thursday!