Thank you, to everyone who helped out on this “grand adventure” we had Saturday on the Connecticut RiverThe perseverance and spirit shown by everyone was impressive, and shows what we are capable of taking on in the future. The scouts showed great problem solving skills and an ability to quickly team up and get things done. Sure, we are not often going to take on as big a challenge, nor will we always succeed, but having seen this troop in action, we should never set our sights low.
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For those who were not present on the trip, this is a run down. We started out at the Vernon Dam in VT. under a beautiful sunny sky. With excellent teamwork, the scouts and adults got the two rafts assembled loaded and in the water, flanked by five canoes. After some coordinated towing and paddling we broke free of the eddy of the dam and started down river. The wind was picking up to our side and rear, so the boys were rigging various sail options which helped to give them a little more speed. After passing through a fun area of faster water, the channel we were in joined the main river. At this point we had gone about 1.5 miles of the ten we needed to do that day and our pace was soon to slow. Because of low water speed that day (low water discharge) and a 7-24 mile per hour head wind we were moving backwards (up stream) and had some serious paddling to do. The canoes and rafts linked up in a chain, everyone had their 6th powerbar, and we paddled like mad. The day was passing by and we could see that the progress we were making would not get us near the campsite by dark with the wind, waves and oncoming rain. As we were hooking up our secret weapon (Chris Bursaw’s small outboard motor) we were generously approached by a local family in a small fishing boat. They offered and we accepted the tow of the rafts (canoes paddling alongside) to the next landing where we would asses our progress. The hour or so of dead into the wind paddling was fun and challenging, and proved that it would take a good size torpedo to even rock those rafts. Once we pulled into the landing we had to make the hard decision to abort. We were just not going to make it to the campsite (which was river access only) with the poor current, headwind, and soon to be increasing storm. Once we disassembled our flotilla on to land, the boys broke into fishing (the first of the day) canoeing practice and pick up paddle baseball scouts vs adults (boys must have cheated to beat us). Mark Elliot, our safety net(thank you Mark) arrived, we got sorted and loaded and you all know the rest of the story.
Pushing someone outside their comfort zone is a good thing, consciously taking a gamble with the safety of the troop in an exposed location is not. We made the right decision based on the information and timing we had at the moment.
But that was Saturday, and we have a whole year ahead of us for other new adventures.
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Arthur Anthony