Ashley's Back!

Hey everyone! I'm Ashley, I'm 16, and I'm from Ottawa. This is my second time at keeners, and I'm so happy to be back! I arrived a week late, but that just makes every day I'm here count that much more. Today was quite interesting when it came to the weather. The morning started off bright and sunny, followed by about an hour of thunderstorming, and then it was sunny again. I found it really cool to be on the water in the rain, because the water looked surreal and everything became more intimidating.

Before getting on the water this morning, we did some stretching and a game called Salad Bowl. Everyone wrote multiple celebrity names onto a slip and the names got mixed together in a bowl. At first, one person from each team would describe or act out the celebrity. Eventually, the amount of words the person could is was limited to no words at all. There were mixed results. Often, the person describing the celebrity to their team to guess wouldn't know who the celebrity was. None the less, it was fun. After breakfast, Stephen Wright explained to us the goals of the day. He showed us videos of airscrews and loops. Some keeners were able to do them, the rest tried!

Surfing at McCoys

We spent the morning at McCoys either surfing right side Horseshoe or Corner Wave. After lunch, we surfed a while at the Lorne and went back to McCoys. Today was really great! But then again, everyday is here! I'm excited to accomplish my goals of learning how to blunt, loop, and cycle on waves. Until next week!

Boof Of Destiny

Boof of Destiny

Dragons Tongue on the Middle Channel has always been my favorite rapid on the Ottawa River. It looks like a very intimidating rapid but its actually not that hard. The normal line has always been my line of choice until yesterday. The boof of destiny is a boof on the left side of dragons tongue. It doesn't look bad but a past keener got stuck behind the curtain of water for about 40 seconds. I have scouted that line many times, but the fact about getting stuck behind the curtain has always stopped me from running that line. Yesterday, I went for three runs down the normal line and felt confident that I could hit the right line at the boof of destiny. Me and Max decided to give it a go. We both had very good lines and made it down safely.

Flying Off the Boof of Destiny. Photo Stephen Wright

The boof of destiny has now become my favorite line down dragons tongue. After four years of scouting that line I finally decided to give it a go and it went smoothly. Today is race day and I hope we can race down Dragons Tongue. Not a boatercross race but we can time our runs through different lines and it could be very fun.

Mauricio Martinez Laresgoiti

Late Arrival by Luka

Hey everyone!

It's Luka, and I'm back for a third (and possibly final) year at the Keener program. Hopefully, I'll be able to get everything I can from the regrettably short two weeks I'll be spending here. My last two experiences here have yielded some great personal growth, both on and off the water, as well as just being full of good times in general, and,with any luck, I'll be able to recreate those results
this year.

Last Year's Group. Hope This Year is Even Better

I arrived on Sunday, around three, and, after meeting some new faces and greeting some old friends, I got straight to unpacking my belongings. Before long I was set up and ready to go paddling. I was on the water by four, and had a good hour and a half session to get warmed up for the next two weeks. I had not been kayaking since the previous summer, and so was not in the greatest shape I could have been. The session helped me remind myself of all of the proper techniques which I should have been employing, as well as allowed me to get the feel of some rapids.

 After dinner, we made our ways to owl rafting where we got to sit in on a whitewater film festival. We got to watch the premiers of several movies, as well as some already released films. It was a great time, and a very unique way to kick off the next few weeks. Hopefully the coming weeks will be just as enjoyable and interesting as these first few days.

Jack Surfs Fluffy (Party) Bunny

Today I decided to write about fluffy bunny partly because of the totally random name and partly because I quite enjoyed surfing it at three and a half. I really enjoyed it so much because I could party surf with four other keeners. This kinda brought up one or two problems: One, the fact the we had no coordination and two, we are really bad at party surfing. But yet I still enjoyed the banter with the other keeners watching everybody struggle to roll up with laughter. I liked surfing bunny on my own too because it was like surfing a..... well fluffy bunny I guess , the wave was just so forgiving you could spin, cartwheel and even loop but that was other people and sadly not me......

My first week in keeners has been amazing , this river just keeps getting better.

Party Surfing Fluffy Bunny

Cheers, Jack

Fluffy Bunny. 

My Day in the Magical River of Awesomeness and Food....

In the magical river of awesomeness and food a paddle is a bread stick, my kayak is an egg shell, the water is maple sirup and bacon, rocks are chocolate chips and the sun is huge golden oreo.

Sliding down in my egg on the maple syrup of awesomeness

So my day in the magical river of awesomeness and food started with a nice and shinny golden oreo and tons of maple sirup and bacon too run! We had to make a choice if we wanted to run the main channel of magical burger patties or the middle channel of awesomeness with chicken. I wanted to run the maple sirup with a large bacon tongue of awesome rapid ( dragons tongue). So I finally got to this rapid, I got on my egg grabbed my bread stick and I was ready to run this maple sirup and bacon! I made two runs my first run i went way to right down the bacon hit some chocolate chips but I did not flip over.
On my second run i hit the line perfectly down the bacon tongue into the the maple sirup eddy. And thats my day in the magical river of awesomeness and food....

By Gabriel Gallo

Tom Schwartz first week back at Keeners

Hello everybody, I am Tom Shwartz and I am from Massachusetts. This is my second year at keeners and I am pumped to be back. The first week here was fresh because of so many awesome thingsv like getting knew tricks, running new lines and just other random things. Also the river feels brand new every few days since the water level is dropping so fast. When I first got here two Sundays ago the water level was around ten and three-quarters and now it’s already down to around three and a half which is crazy since it has only been around a week. 

First of all I won big water beat down Thursday because I got whooped in right side Phils while having the selfie cam, which unfortunately was not on. So I could not the get footage of it, but I still enjoyed getting tumbled there. 

Also I had a fresh swim with Jordan to the gauge on Saturday after a day of paddling. Where we discover that with my lifeproof case we could listen to music underwater as long as our ears were also underwater. Which made the fact that my arms were so tired and I had to basically kick the whole way much better. After the swim we chilled on the rocks till pizza came for dinner. 

Later me, Hamish, Jeremy, and Maurissio went out to paddle Corner Wave because we it had just become good to surf. There was some good spins and blunts being thrown from every one. I brought my speakers along so we jam while surfing. Also got some pretty fresh pictures while we were out there. 

Mauricio Jamming out at Corner Wave

In addition to all of these fresh things happening this weekend my lifejacket tan is at its initial stages which consists of sun burns on my shoulders, arms, and anywhere else my pfd doesn’t cover. All of this should eventually turn into a nice lifejacket tan. So all in all I had a pretty sweet first week back at keeners and am amped for the next two weeks. 

Changing Waters of the Ottawa

Running Phils at 8 feet

Hi I`m Jonny this is my second blog of the session. One of the things I noticed on the Ottawa was how fast the levels dropped over the course of a weekend. When I got to keeners last week the level was around 10 on the gauge. Each notch on the gauge is about a foot and now its around 3. One of my favorite waves called Waikiki was in until 6 feet, but now its gone;  so sad. Even though Waikiki is no longer really surfable new fun waves are in like Chopping block wave and more will be coming in soon. Its amazing, but at every level the Ottawa has some kind of fun wave or hole to surf.

Every day on the river with its different levels is tons of fun since some features are gone and changed. Its like re-discovering the river everyday. Wondering what has changed or is different each time I go down it gives the day a fun sense of adventure.