"Can you folks remember your first solo trip"

are you kiddin ? - I can't remember what I had for dinner yesterday

first solo ? or first solo canoe trip ?   I learned early on not to depend on other people if I wanted to go and do something, especially at the drop of the hat, and I'm always dropping mine - hunting or fishing or biking or packing back into some lake - so I'd done lots of solo trips before I ever did my first solo canoe trip - by then, I was totally used to it (you can put me in the introvert camp I guess) and never think twice about going it alone - I still mostly hunt and backpack and do most everything alone - (rock climbing is a logical exception), but I do many group canoe trips a year - I'll paddle as often as I get the chance.  If my brother doesn't go on a quetico trip with me, I don't look for anyone else to fill in - I just go.  I don't see much difference planning wise, except I'll push harder solo just cause I can - mistakes are due to poor planning either solo or group - I do a lot of planning and try to minimize mistakes. I'm always cautious, hard to say of moreso solo.

A lot of the people I paddle with in the canoe club like to do 3-day weekend trips.  that's a problem for me, as I just don't have enough vacation days to use for that third day - so I started going along and leaving a day ahead of the others [note that I discussed with the trip leaders ahead of time,  and got thier ok to do that; I wouldn't just leave] - that was a bit different at first, going alone thru the rapids, but then I realized that it wasn't much different than being the first one of a group to run them (as I often would be) - no one was downstream to fish me out if I screwed up, and I'd have to self rescue anyways, so what'd the dif? none, really.