Sadly, Rebecca's Final Blog.

"Alright Keeners!"

The morning warm ups always start out with the same phrase in the beginning. It may not seem like much but the weird thing is, once back home, you notice the difference. The community feeling of Keeners is amazing. The last week of Keeners is always bittersweet. It's the last week, so of course there is some sadness. While I miss being home, I know that once I am back I am going to miss everything about Keeners. I've met so many awesome people that I hope to keep in contact with. But theres also still one more week left. One more week of racing, beatdowns, competitions, rescue techniques, surfing, and of course all while kayaking.

Going to miss these ladies! 

The week started out with a bang of course! The session started with a water level around 14
and this week it is now around 1. I'm so excited that there have been so many different features I've gotten to try and this week we've been doing a lot of surfing at McKoys at Cornerwave and now Babyface! also joining the list is Blacks, Garb, and Push Button! I'm excited for all of the new features coming in and glad I have one more week here.

Davids Last Post

Coach Juan of Peru

This session of Keeners has been awesome!  I’ve learned so much these three weeks, and I’ve improved so much.  Today and yesterday have been really awesome-  I’ve been getting super pumped up on paddling, and just trying to do as much as I can.  I’ve been throwing all my tricks better, bigger, and landing them on the wave.  It really just show how awesome the Keener program is.  Thanks to all our awesome instructors, everyone has gotten better in a way that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.  But anyway, these past two days have gotten everyone really excited about all the features that come in with the dropping level.  We now have Corner Wave and Babyface right outside of Keenerville, and Garb is starting to come in.  I’m looking forward to an awesome last week of Keeners, and a fun race day tomorrow!

Until next year-

David

Sebastian's last post

Repping Canada on Canada Day. 

Hello everyone again. It is Sebastian here for the last time. It is hard to believe it is already my last week here at Keeners. The past two weeks have flown by; I still can’t believe the change of water levels here on the Ottawa. It has dropped about fourteen feet so far. I have been able to surf Minibus, cornerwave, chopping block and big kahuna. All have been great. On BWBDT we swam coliseum on purpose, which I have done before but this time I had some down time. At first it was scary, but now I feel more comfortable knowing that I can deal with that situation, if it should ever happen in the future. 

Last competition Friday was great as I got to put up some points on the board and challenge myself. There is lots of time left in the week to push myself even more and keep trying new tricks and lines on the river. I have had a great time here and can't wait to see all of the new friends I have made here on the Ottawa and rivers all over the world.

Hello everyone my name is Jordan and this is my last blog post for keeners this year. I have had an amazing time and I know I will be affected by my time here for the rest of my life. I have made friends and connections all around the world from Norway to Costa Rica and i have learned skills, both for life and for kayaking, that I will always keep with me. I have improved so much over the last two weeks thanks to determination and our amazing coaches. Just yesterday I was able to do my first bow stall, a skill that I have been attempting for over two years. Everyone is so supportive of each other and our community here is safe and strong.

Working on the double pump to get my bowstall

My time on the Ottawa has been incredible. In two weeks I have surfed both mini bus and garb, run new lines and surfed new waves almost every day. Watching the river change has been incredible and I am so happy that I have gotten this chance to be a part of it. The Ottawa has pushed my limits in every way from pushing new, hard, technical lines, to unbelievably huge crashing waves to surf. I love this river and the people on it and I look forward to being part of this great community again.
Until next year!
Jordan Williams

Ashley's Second Blog

-->

Hey it's Ashley again! It's amazing how quickly time passes here. Today was another great competition Friday. We split into two groups, one group running the main channel and another running the middle channel. I ran the middle and it was awesome! We ran Iron Ring and surfed a hole at S Bend for our competition. We got a lot of practice runs in which helped us to get comfortable with surfing the hole. So when it was time to compete I scored four points total between my two runs, which is much better than my zero point score last week. My paddling is improving a lot which makes me happy. After dinner we all went back out to McCoys and I surfed Horseshoe, which was such a cool experience I really loved it. I had a really great day today and I'm really looking forward to kayaking some more. Goodbye for now!

Keener Warm-up! 

Nicole Week 2

Hey everyone its Nicole again! It has been another wonderful week in the keener program from SRT (Swift Water Rescue Training) to our fun keener bonfires and movie nights. The week started with SRT then on Wednesday we had our famous race day where my race involved us running through the island on upper no name (which kind of reminded me of Narnia) and then getting into our boats at the top of the rapid and high-fiving our partners in the eddy at the bottom of the rapid unfortunately this was not the case for me and my partner as when I tried to get into my boat I ended up slipping off of the rocks and into the rapid without my skirt or my paddle, though I did make it through more than half of the rapid. Lets just say, it was a very eventful race for me.

            On Thursday it was the very well known and very much loved Big Water Bacon Beatdown Thursday. The morning started off with the SRT group and the rest of the Keeners separating so we could finish getting our certification, the SRT group swam down Mcoys Rapid through Phils hole and we practiced how to get out of gear and foot entrapments with coaches Tyler Curtis, and Joel Kowalski. We then met up after lunch and made our way down river to Coliseum where no we did not have to run it in our kayak but yes we did have to swim it. It was probably one of the single most terrifying things I have ever done but I am very happy that I did it because it made me way more comfortable kayaking in the big water that the Ottawa River has to offer.

Practicing how to wade safely in SRT

            We ended our week with our competition Friday where one of our Norwegian Keeners won the competition with a loop caused by his emergency monkeys as described by our head coach Steven Wright. I was really happy with my competition ride because I improved a lot from last week and even last summer. I hope to continuously improve my scores every week here for the rest of the summer.

            Saturday was my birthday and I cant think of any better way to spend it then up here with the keeners and spending the day surfing at Mcoys and hanging out with all of the new friends that I have made.

            I am so grateful for the opportunity that my parents and the keener program have given to me and I feel like I am one of the luckiest people in the world for getting to gain all of the experience from our world class instructors. I am looking forward to the on coming weeks in the keener program and for the rest of the summer here in the keener program. 

Matt's Final Blog

Screen shot of our Keener Warm up. We make Waves. 

          Hey blog reading community, Matt here. So today I had a pretty amazing day. It started with an invigorating warm-up followed by a fantastic breakfast finished off with a great trash sweep. By the time I got on the river I already felt a sense of accomplishment.

Today I chose to run the middle channel for diversity of play features, considering I have pretty much been exclusively running the Main channel. So we quickly got to S bend where I worked mostly on good boat control. After a while there we paddled down to the lunch site for some wicked good burgers. After I ate I had the privilege of cleaning the lavatories with David, when the unthinkable happened! We ran out of bleach! At that point we found some 'bleach" with a nondescript label. Eventually we realized it was a drain unclogging fluid and that we were accomplishing little with it. But we redeemed ourselves with a vigorous sweeping.

We then left to paddle the No-Name rapids and we all made some serious flat-water trick advancements. So we got to the takeout, loaded up our boats, drove up to Keenerville, but then we got back into our boats to do some stuff at McCoy's rapid. Corner wave was at an amazing level, Horseshoe was great and Babyface came in too! We had an amazing time. So obviously the only way to finish up the day was with Speech Night. And I have to say is it was one of our best! So now I'm signing out to get some sleep so that I can have another fantastic day on the Otta
wa River!
                                                                    Peace,
                                                                 Matt Smith