wrote on Apr 26^th, 2005 at 10:20pm:

<big snip> We did this, so now, you don’t have to.

We started a similar paddle once and experienced a similar result. We took someone's word for it w/o researching or preparing. It seemed simple enough at the time. After much unexpected hardship, indecision and a few choice words, we finally arrived at the takeout (thankful we didn't miss it) well past dark - freezing our butts off as well.

After car heaters (and defrosters), the shuttle (there were three canoes) and the ride back, we got together at someone's house. After apologies and tipping a few, there were no hard feelings - just laughter at our own stupidity as well as our bad/good luck = lessons learned.

Thank you for the reminder sir. It's always preferable to learn from the mistakes of others. Especially when those mistakes serve as reminders of important lessons we hold so dear long after having forgotten why they became important in the first place. I now remember WHY all those scratches got there...

90% of the "character" earned by the bottom of my canoe came from the last quarter of that single day. I remember the day but had forgotten the 'why' until a few hours after reading this thread. Much appreciated!