OC2 on the Nantahala
| River: | Nantahala |
| Skill: | Novice+/Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 04/15/2017 |
We Swam!
Over the winter I outfitted my 16' Old Town Canoe Penobscot with a spray deck. This is in an effort to get my wife out white water paddling with me more and also to take on less water in the canoe.
I decided that the Nanty would be the best trip to test out the spray deck since last time we paddled the canoe on the Nanty it swamped several times. I posted the trip and had one paddler express interest in joining, and then he was a no show.
It was just Theresa and I on the trip. We did swamp at Pattons but that was the worst we took on water during the day while staying in the boat. The spray deck did a decent job keeping a little more water out of the the boat, but it was a process of continually bailing thoughtout our journey. Then we encountered Delebars rock. I had the idea to take the right line at the rock and in the process of working right, we hit Delebars sideways and swam. This was Theresa's first whitewater swim and she went into full panic mode and lost the paddle, but she did make it to the bank. During my swim I somehow held onto the 16' canoe, paddle, and still managed to swim to the bank. After Theresa finished hyperventilating we resumed the trip. Fortunately the paddlers ahead of us caught the errant paddle and no gear was lost in the swim. The rest of the paddle went on with out incident.
It was a lovely day on the river and Theresa is a true whitewater paddler now that she has had a swim. And, for future reference, she always wants to take the left line at Delebars.