JOURNEY #8 - June 30, 2002

Ottawa River (Britannia Beach to Crystal Bay): "The Mighty Ottawa"

We were a bit tuckered out from the Tay trip the day before, but after a long day of errands we managed to get out to Britannia for a sunset cruise.

We launched just west of the pier, near the start of the bike path. This was a rather smelly area thanks to the frequent presence of humans who have left behind their garbage. However, it had a sandy bottom and was the closest to the parking lot.

Some friends on the Quebec side have been encouraging us to organize a kayak trip over to their home which is close to the water on the northern shoreline, so we thought that this would be a good time to try to locate our destination and scope out a crossing point from the south.

We headed up the curving shorel and stopped in at the creek near the northern boundary of Andrew Haydon Park. Here we discovered a much more pleasant future launch site, with a grassy entry and close to the parking lot to boot. After goofing around in the swollen creek, we headed northwest across the marina and towards Crystal Bay. At this point it was windy and there were some decent waves, but nothing too threatening. It was a good opportunity for Keenan to test out the perfomance of the Navigator in more trying conditions.

Crystal Bay has some beautiful homes and even a small private beach. Some of the houses are grotesquely huge, however, which is always disappointing to see on a waterfront. At this point the wind and waves were really picking up, and we made a wise decision to start heading back. We opted for a more direct route, heading northeast, which was certainly faster than going along the shore, but also a bit scary. The river is very wide here, and as we found out, the water conditions can change rapidly.

Keenan's Navigator performs a bit better in choppy conditions whereas Julie's Solstice does better on flat water, so she had a bit of a struggle keeping up. And it was not a place to be alone in the water, with waves now high enough to slosh into the cockpit. These kayaks are designed to cope with much worse, of course, so the mild fear we both experienced was not entirely rational. But we are still novices for the most part, and being far from shore in such a large body of water was a bit intimidating. The waves were smacking directly on the side of our yaks most of the way back, which was also a new experience.

As the pier drew closer we both relaxed and enjoyed the conditions. Waves are a lot of fun when you are in the state of mind to enjoy them. We were packed up and ready to go shortly after 8:00pm. The entire trip was only about two hours, but we had been paddling pretty hard, particularly on the way back. We will likely retun and launch from the creek in the park and attempt a crossing to our friends in Aylmer - provided the weather is perfect!