This was a real life scene on the Huron River today. But this photo is misleading. It looks like a decked C1 hair boater is blasting past a batch of tube turkeys. No, no, no. There were about 50 drunk floaties in a huge drift and Old Super Dude was PART OF THEIR GROUP!
I tried to get a pic showing him churning around in their midst, coz that’s what he was doing most of the time, but I blew it. The whole scene blew my mind.
This guy couldn’t help but go crazy in his hair boat. He was doing nonstop dyno moves in his crazy kneeler. He couldn’t help it in such a sweet purple kevlar boat. But those were indeed his companions and there were 10 times as many of them as in my pic.
No one else in my group understood the incongruity so I only had time to chat with him a bit and snap this pic. I missed out on what would’ve been a totally insane fore-shortened shot a few moments earlier. I coulda sold it to a white-water magazine. I just snapped this pic in a fumbled flash and am happy it turned out as good as it did. …And one of his pals yelled “$10 for a titty shot!”
…40 tubers and 1 hair boater on a lily dippin’ river. It was nuts! He said he used to race in Pennsylvania he said. He showed me some tricky moves. Sweet!
It was the first WW C1 that I ever saw in the flesh. Fun!
In case ya don’t know, C1-ers are the crazy ones of the whitewater world, making dirty kayak bums seem normal. I mean, they only have half a paddle. And they paddle on both sides of the boat without switching hands. They’re so darkly nuts that I couldn’t even find a google link showing what I’m talking about. OK, here’s a little one, showcasing the most competitive paddle-dudes the USA has come up with in a long time, maybe ever, and it happened in the mid-80’s and it was all about C1: Jon Lugbill, Davey Hearn, and Kent Ford. 2 of them were part of the first group inducted into the US Boater Hall of Fame awhile back (maybe the third got in soon after): www.canoekayak.com/features/paddling-news/wwhof/
PS: A half hour later I saw another kind of mind-blower. In the midst of another flotilla of rental aluma-subs and one Coleman Shin-Killer, I noticed a decent Kevlar Wenonah cruiser. Unusual enough. But then right before a mini-rapid I saw the stern guy stand up and start using a canoe-pole that had a mini-blade on the end of it! Freak me out! He went down the rapid standing up, the better to scope out the rocks. Dang! I’ve never seen another poler before. Much less one with a tricky special pole which was also a paddle. Dang!
