Return of Eddie Spedder

Day 5 (7/6/11)

Day five is actually a composite of four and five together. We were able to go up the river a Mauthe both days. The first day we were again reminded how much we dislike the Eddie Spedders of the world. We were on our way over to the river when all of a sudden out of nowhere this T.S. comes over and starts putting on a clinic for us. He is spinning and paddling backwards and basically making a nuisance of himself. At that point we should have changed our course and he may have never noticed the opening into the river. Once he saw where we were heading he shot ahead and on up the river. As you can well imagine any wildlife was soon cowering well away from the river. It was a beautiful day though and as anticipated it didn’t take long before Eddie had grown bored and came shooting back the other direction leaving the rest of the river unmolested. There was another kayaker who also must have seen us go into the channel and followed us up the river but to his credit he never got very close and seemed to enjoy the slow leisurely pace we set. When we got to the turnaround point he drifted off before I had a chance to thank him for his patience. Next time we will have to be more careful about sneaking into the river.