Eddylines, by Marko Suchy

Last weekend at keeners, I sat In my hammock, overlooking McCoy’s chute, and wrote in my journal: 

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As I sit in my hammock and watch rafters float by, I can’t help but think about the interaction between water and gravity that allows a river like the Ottawa to flow.  The other day, our instructor Clay said ‘as paddlers, we are eternal students of current.’  As he said this, I couldn’t help but think about the sole property of water that makes the rapid on which we kayak. Uninterrupted, water will take the shape of whatever it is put into. This interaction between water and gravity is what creates waves, holes, Eddys, and all the features whitewater paddlers study. 

As gravity pulls water from a higher to a lower pool, a natural contradiction occurs. Water is pushed to keep flowing to a lower pool, but at the same time pulled to fill the pool it’s in. This Contradiction shows itself in an eddyline. Here, water being pulled downstream meets water flowing upstream. 

For us paddlers, both elements of this contradiction, water flowing upstream and water flowing downstream, are necessary to run a river. 

Paddlers find action in the main current. As we travel toward our ultimate destination, downstream, physical challenges await us as we move through wave trains, boof holes, and surf waves. We work on throwing blunts and airscrews, and we get stoked when we have a good ride on a wave.

In eddys, paddlers find an opportunity to regroup and take a moment to think. Often, paddlers use eddies to theorize how they will interact with a rapid; be it scouting a rapid, setting safety, practicing a wave/hole trick on flatwater, the theory of kayaking all starts when a paddler enters the eddy. Paddlers also use eddies to deal with fear, finding courage for the feat they are about to perform.

Eddys and the natural contradiction between upstream and downstream current that represent both the physical moves required when going down the river, and the psychological and theoretical aspect of kayaking.  

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This weekend I paddled with my friends Carson and Julian, we started at mustache wave, then slowly moved upstream toward bigger waters: pushbutton, and eventually garburator. 

Mustache wave isn’t the gnarliest wave. In fact it’s quite small and underwhelming. I party surfed at mustache wave a couple times on my way from pushbutton down the river, but naively, I never really thought of it as a place I could have a session. But this weekend, mustache wave taught me something. It taught me that I have learned so much. After surfing Phil’s, Garburator, and Babyface, returning to a small and manageable wave, I realized that I now knew how to do so much more than just ‘surf’ the wave. I found myself careening to the right rail with my left knee up, leaning back into the foam pile, then blasting off down the green water on the left, carving hard right, then doing it all again. I felt like I had reached a level of mastery only a Jedi could, yet I wasn’t even throwing a single trick.

Similarly to my inspiring coach ‘Steve-O,’ I found myself struck by metaphor. I don’t know why, but my brain made a connection to my thoughts on eddylines from the prior weekend. After jumping into the main current of going bigger and better at keeners, navigating my way around Babyface, throwing blunts in Garb, and earning glory tumbling in Phill’s, I moved backwards (upstream)  to mustache wave. This backward movement gave me a moment to step back, and look at my progression in kayaking. I had had my fun in garb throwing the occasional massive blunt, but now I was here at mustache wave, and I was forced to think about that I was doing, much like how an eddy forces a kayaker to think before entering whitewater. I 'zoomed out' and realized I was here kayaking with my friends, and having a blast. My love for kayaking was once again renewed. What’s more, I had a really fun experience just hanging with friends and surfing at mustache wave.

Surfing mustache may not have been as beneficial to my actual skills as having a session at a beefier wave like garb, but it was incredibly beneficial to my psyche. It forced me to realize that kayaking isn’t all about going forwards. It’s about the journey of traveling forwards, then back. It’s about moving downstream to the ultimate destination of running massive creeks like the green river narrows, but it’s also about stepping back and thinking about what you’re actually doing. 

During my time here at keeners, I’ve learned it’s important to drive hard toward your goals, but I’ve also learned that it’s important to step back and take a look at where you are, who you are with, who you are, and what you’re doing. I’ve learned part of the keener experience is not only kayaking every day and becoming the best paddler you can be, but also taking time to ponder these important questions. If paddling has taught me one thing it is to not only move forward with gusto following my goals and aspirations, but also to find time to ponder important questions and proceed with my downstream plunge thoughtfully.