Done!!

We made it to Richmond a couple of hours ago. The GPS is showing 89.8 miles, but the batteries began dying at the end of the trip and it shut down a couple of times. Actual mileage is closer to 95. The Rivanna was gorgeous and treated us fairly well. There were a few spots of small rapids called riffles, but they didn't give us too much trouble. Day 2 put us on the James. The first part of the James was extremely boring. It was wide and the current was slow, so it felt like we weren't moving. For all the effort it takes to paddle a loaded kayak, it was a little disheartening. Day 3 was filled with excursions through scenic islands where the river split into several smaller bubbling brooks. Day 4 (today) started out foggy on the water and cool enough to warrant B.I.L. and I to sport our fleeces. By noon we shucked the long sleeves and enjoyed another boring paddle in the wide, slow moving James River. We had to portage around 2 dams as we migrated into the last map of the trip. The day of boring and slow paddling ended with cockpit filling class III and IV rapids.

The trip went extremely well-by that I mean we are both alive and neither of us took a spill, quite a feat for nearly 100 miles in a kayak. We took a few pictures, but not as many as I had hoped. Turns out, it is unbelievably hard to hold a camera, read a map, and paddle a kayak, all at the same time. After I get some rest and a very large dinner and breakfast, I will post the day-by-day events and explain why I didn't blog during the trip. More to come over the weekend.




Fair winds and following seas...