There are many ways to have fun on the Ottawa river even if you have run it for a long time. The Ottawa is a very safe river because every rapid ends in a pool of flat water. This means you can do many things that you can do on this river that you cant do on the other rivers. One of favorite ways to have fun on the Ottawa is racing. Every Wednesday at Keeners is Race Day Wednesday. One reason why I like racing is because it helps me learn other parts of kayaking, not just playboating. In this blog, I list a couple races we did this past Wednesday so you can try them too.
One way to race on the Ottawa is a relay race down the first rapid, McCoys Chute. The way we did a relay race was by hitting a beach volleyball across the top of McCoy rapid it looked challenging. The second leg of the race as from Squirtboat eddy to the river right shore and then back to the river left shore. Then someone goes from the football eddy to the swimmers island to the finish line.
Another race we did was through the Lorne. My favourite race here is the Legs out to Lunch. To do this race you need to pull your skirt and then put your legs out of the kayak. now you are ready to run garb and Waikiki. Don't forget to take the driest line!
Lastly, at the forth and fifth rapid (Normans and Coliseum) you pull out the ball that you used for the first race and you will have a team of 3 to get the ball down both Normans and Coliseum. The first team to the bottom with the ball wins.
This race is harder than it looks! Yesterday, my ball got stuck in one of the holes on Coliseum and I had to catch an eddy and wait until someone else could hit it out. Good thing we had a team.
My favourite of these three is legs out to the takeout, because you never know who is going to win and I always have a good chance.
Happy Racing!
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