Hampsta's second blog

One ring to rule them all.

My two weeks at Keeners have flown by much to fast for my liking and we have now settled into our last week in this kayaking paradise on the Ottawa river. But hopefully this week will be the memories of my time here. We have started the third week off with a bang, with the a themed week. The theme the coaches have chosen is Lord of The Rings week. Us Keeners have been split up into four groups; The Hobbits with Stevo being the king Hobbit because of his shortness and hairiness (which is the group i was chosen to be in and the group that is currently in the lead), the Orcs which is lead by Juanito or Lord SorqJuan, the Elves lead by Tyler Fox, and lastly the Dwarfs who are lead Kalob Grady.

The basic aim of Lord of The Rings week is to gain as much points for your team as possible by doing challenges set by the coaches and winning the challenges will gain you more points. You can also do minor activities such to help out coaches and make their lives easier. But losing points is also a factor during the week because swearing which usually gains you push ups will now lose points for your team and being late getting on the water will also lose you points.

My favorite activity of Lord of The Rings week so far was being involved in the skirt-less ( not actual skirts but spay decks which you use to cover up the cock-pit you sit inside) race down Normans and Colosseum. So basically because these rapids are pretty big and you are allowing your boat to be filled up with water it is very difficult to paddle as your boat is acting like a submarine and you are being sucked to the bottom. So the race started off with one paddler from each team doing the skirt-less race and one safety boater from each team assisting there skirt-less racer encase the skirt-less racer became endangered in some way. The Hobbits skirt-less racer was Jordan and I was the safety boater, the Elves skirt-less racer was Max and the safety boater was Jeremy, the Dwarfs skirt-less racer was Connor and the safety boater was Mauricio and lastly the Orcs skirt-less racer was Tom with the safety of Isaiah. The race was epic because as soon as the skirt-less racers got down into the whitewater their boats filled up and they were disappearing like a submarine and coming back up after 5 seconds doing stern stalls (balancing on the back of your kayak) the race was close but Jordan won which was great for my team, but only because Max who came first was disqualified for being helped during the race when you are supposed to be doing it by yourself.

I am looking forward to the rest of the Lord of The Rings themed week with many more cool activities to come!

yours truly,
Hampsta