There are three things that I am pretty predictable about loving: my kayak, camping, and backcountry. Thing is, they kind of have to go together. The last weekend in June was kayak and camping without the backcountry, and though there were times when I had big fun, and the weekend was superbly organized, but I was overstimulated. Too many people to talk to! (so I mostly talked to people I already know.) Too many choices of food (and a cooler full of beer.) Too many things to do! (so I spent a good chunk of time sitting on a rock not doing anything.) And too much garbage, too many powerboats cruising by, too many cars.

My weekend included a night paddle, on Friday night with Lee and several other people (apologies, it was very dark, I don't know who else was there. I did recognize a voice or two later in the weekend, but I didn't feel all confident about wandering up to random stranger and saying, did we have a conversation in the dark not long ago? These people don't know me, they might think I'm weird (oh shut up. I set myself up perfectly, so I'll state it myself: people who know you think you're even weirder, Johanna. There, happy?)

I'm not going to try and sum up all there was to do and see at the GLSKA Rendezvous 2005. Instead, let's sum up the mood of the weekend with this little series of pictures, called Hart tries to tip man with bracing skills. (Hart was unsuccessful). In words: old friends were seen, fun was had, kayak skills were used and worked on. There may or may not have been incidents involving white gas and campfires and there probably was a whole lot of consumption of beverages (and I still had ice in the cooler by the end of the weekend - car camping!).

The kayak skill that particularly interested me this past weekend was the balance brace. I'd never seen it done until I started paddling with Dan. It looked cool. And as the temperature heated up, it became a way to stay cool. Amie managed to master it in a short time. Of course, the only time she failed to nail it, I had my camera aimed at her. So, probably because I am jealous of how good she is at this, I spitefully upload the failed brace picture too! (kidding. KIDDING. Amie really is good and looked unbelievably graceful, and perhaps I was jealous of that, but I am not all that spiteful.) Not to be left out, I got the beginnings of the balance brace down myself - but it will be a while before I do it without hanging onto another boat! Not to be outdone, Nancy made it look easy too.

What a bunch of keeners we are!

While I was perched on a rock, the Qayaq Olympics went on all around me. The course was next to a busy boating channel, but Lee and David were safety patrol and made sure the channel was never blocked. A few times, people dumped too, so the safety guys did assisted rescues.

There were lots of fun to watch events, coordinated effectively by Howard and Rob. I asked Rob to give me his best “I'm an important official” pose (see left), but it really took the patience of a saint to deal with all these people milling about, getting them on the water in time and lined up and communicating to them what exactly they had to do and where they should do it. Hats off to the organizers, because there were never any long delays.

The folks who hang out here are the fun sort anyway, and it's not hard to kill a few minutes when you're drifting on warm water. I saw both Elke and Lee spend plenty of time dunking themselves to cool off while I was entertaining myself with my camera. When I got bored with the camera, I put on my swimsuit and made my way in the water. I didn't make it past mid-thigh before I thought it was maybe too cold after all, but then Dan paddled near me and I aked him for a ride on his rear deck - which immediately resulted in much fun when he did a lot of rolls with me stuck to his boat. It's hard to remember to be cold when you're having that much fun, and it wasn't cold anyway, it just took getting used to.

My favourite event of the Challenge is the one I call the no-pants race. I think it's officially called "the long and the shorts of it", and participants are required to race out to a buoy, take off their pants, proudly display them in the air, and come back - and their pants must be back on before they get to the finish line.

Lots of other races, including the sideways kayak race - as illustrated by Bill here - and some towing races. I have so far studiously avoided all mention of Sam, because the bugger always wins every event he enters - and Team Sam always wins the broken paddle tropy. This year was no exception. Sigh. So no pretty picture of Sam doing any races, though I suspect you can find him in some of the pictures. He gets enough attention! Though he did have an excellent idea of marking his turf / picnic table spot with his name tag, and I immediately followed suit.

There was more - there was a band on Saturday night, just like there was Les Stround on Friday night, but... no pictures. I was overstimulated at that point again, and got antsy sitting still (perhaps, though, that may have something to do with the incredibly good potluck dinner we'd just had, including more sugar than I usually eat in a week when I discovered the dessert table). Regardless, I was sitting still, trying not to be disruptive, but muttering under my breath that a sunset paddle would be cool. Lucky for me, Dan heard me, and said, “you want to go paddle?” I came back with, “yes, RIGHT NOW” - and what do you know, within seconds, Dan, Lee, Burke, May, Peter, Bert and I were launching. There was no time to grab my camera! There wouldn't have been time to take pictures anyway, we moved like stink into the setting sun. It was wonderful. When we came back, the band was still playing, but again, I didn't pay much attention because Burke showed me his bat detector, and we stalked some bats (we found some at the marina).

There was also the Sunday paddle, or rather paddles. Sandy led his usual shipwreck paddle, Keith had a poke along the shore route in mind according to the sign-up sheet - and I was torn between Sarka's visit to the Cathcarts and Sam's route to the Umbrellas. It's been two years since I went to the Umbrellas, so I ended up joining Sam, and eleven of us had a wonderful day.