I went for a 10km paddle on the river tonight. It was pretty windy but at least it wasn’t raining. The river was pretty busy with kayak and canoe rentals which made it somewhat of an obstacle course at times. It is nice to see a lot of people taking an interest in paddling but it does get a bit frustrating when they paddle directly in your path. I saw quite a few herons and cormorants tonight but didn’t bother with taking many photos.   You can only take so many photos on the McIntyre before they all start looking the same.

The weather this summer is amazing (but not in a good way). When I woke up this morning, it was sunny and a clear sky. A perfect day for paddling! After breakfast and a shower, I went outside to load my kayak and sure enough, it started to rain. Fortunately, the rain only lasted a half hour or so and the sun came back out. By the time I had my gear in the car and kayak strapped down, it started raining again. It was still sunny out and there were no dark clouds to be seen so I headed to the river. I need to get a lot more paddling over the next couple weeks if I plan on finishing the Mississippi River Challenge in August.

I saw 3 blue herons, a couple of cormorants and about 500 Canadian geese (which I thought were going to attack me) this afternoon. The river was pretty busy with paddlers. A couple in a canoe seemed to purposely paddle directly in front of me two times today. The first time, they were waiting on the opposite side of the river as me and then decided to paddle to the other side as I was approaching. They were coming straight at me without slowing down or turning away. Twenty minutes later after I turned around at the William St bridge and started heading back, they came at me again. This time, I was paddling down the middle of the river, they were on my left and once we were within 5 meters of each other, they decided it would be a good time to cross over to the other side of the river. Once again, cutting directly in front of me. It wouldn’t bother me so much if they actually looked at me and acknowledged that I was there but both times I had to slow down and change course because of them and they avoided looking at me as if they didn’t even know I was there.

Paddling the McIntyre from the Island Dr. boat launch

The first Heron I saw today

A gang of threatening geese and two cormorants

The second Heron I saw today.

I hate paddling under the train bridge. I always think a rat is going to jump on my head.

A familiar sight while paddling the McIntyre and Neebing rivers.

The third Blue Heron I saw today. They must be getting used to paddlers on the river because none of them seemed concerned at all while I paddled by.

The Sleeping Giant. It started raining again so I called it quits after I took this picture.

Originally, we planned on going to Hazelwood Lake for the first paddle this year but my car broke down halfway there. After a couple hours of delay and finally figuring out the problem with my car, we decided it would be better to head back and paddle the rivers in town.  I didn’t want to get stuck out at Hazelwood if my car died again.

All in all, we were out for a couple hours and paddled just over 10km tonight.

Heading under the Simpson St. bridge on the Neebing River.

The sun came out while we were on our way back to the McIntyre River.

We paddled out to Lake Superior for an hour or so.

Candy in front of the Sleeping Giant.

The sun was going down so it was time to head back.