Okay, things are looking good for the Kawartha Highlands Signature Site trip. There are five people confirmed: Myself, Anthony, John, Ania, and Marina. I am still waiting to hear from Rudy.
It will be interesting getting people to and from the campsite, as we will have an odd number going in on Friday, and another odd numbered batch going in on Saturday. If Rudy is unable to join us, that means we'll have an odd number coming home. Someone (me, probably) will have to paddle from the campsite to the access point on Saturday.
We will be at site 126
We still need to work out food, and tent situations. I will be in my trusty hammock. Hopefully the girls will bring a tent.
25-Aug-2011
I just got off the phone with John. We are splitting up into two teams (since he is coming on Saturday, rather than Friday). Each team will be handling their own food requirements, tents, transport, etc. with the exception of Supper on Saturday night. I will be baking brownies. I will also be bringing enough coffee and sugar for everyone. John's team will be cooking Saturday night.
Sadly, I have not heard from Rudy, so I'm going to be cutting him from the trip.
I also want to thank Rachel for allowing us to use her canoes (and related gear). I'm looking forward to seeing the paddle bag she has created. Apparently you can put a number of paddles into the bag and close it, then the bag can be tied up inside the canoe on top of the car, rather than trying to fit them in the trunk or the back seat. this makes it nicer if you have a lot of passengers. I'll post some info in the gear review section after the trip.
Anthony and I will be bringing two canoes up on Friday. We will either each have a canoe to travel in, or we will throw all the gear in one canoe and tow it with the other.
I bought a camera last year for my cruise, so look for lots of pictures coming soon.
More gear review upcoming
In addition to the paddle bag, I will be reviewing another of Rachel's inventions, a slack sock. When tying a canoe to a vehicle, one is often left with a great deal of slack rope which must be secured. The standard procedure is to keep tying until you run out of rope. Rachel has devised a way of attaching socks to the line and stuffing the slack rope into the sock. I haven't seen it, but I suspect it works similar to Hennesy Hammock's Snakeskins.
Slack Socks
I definitely fall into the "keep tying until you run out of rope" crowd. The problem is that you spend half an hour untying all that rope. I was experimenting with looping the excess rope together, and then tying the loop to the taut part of the line. However, I haven't come up with a nice, consistent method that won't get untied while travelling at 100km/h yet. Those slack socks sound like a really cool idea.