What skill set?

water

– Last Updated: Jun-07-12 6:40 PM EST –

is defintely on the redundancy list. Hopefully I will get to start trying to brace and follow some of Celia's suggestions regarding balancing on the kayak in the next week.

There are plans to make 3 or 4 shorter overnight trips of various duration above Maysville prior to the big event. First will be a simple overnight, 2nd 3rd and 4th will be 2 or 3 nights with longer paddling distances.

Of course prior to any of those will be several day trips just to get a feel for the river.

I will do this before early October which is when I plan to make a preliminary go/no go decision based on what skills I have acquired. Not enough skills and the trip will wait until fall of 2013.

In addition to above
1. Familiarize yourself with requirements and protocol for locking through the dams.



2. Channel reading - staying in the main flow will save you a good deal of effort.



3. Consider a bike mirror (or something similar) to spot barge tows coming up from behind. They don’t swerve or stop and more tonnage passes Cincinnati than goes through the Panama Canal. On the other hand, if you do ramp up your boat skills, you can surf a towboat wake all the way downriver (not the relatively flat v-waves created by the barges, but the large thrust wave behind the boat).

Don’t dismiss the roll
You will be surprised how easy it is with a loaded boat.

Main channel
is where the towboats will be I was planning staying out of it although maybe just to the outside.



Hadn’t thought about the mirror thing to watch for tows coming from behind. Will definitley look into that.



Have been looking at the locking through procedures for quite sometime now. Some of the trip journals I have read indicate the locks can really slow down the travel for the day.

Will
not dismiss the roll. Based on all the comments I have recieved and threads I have read, I will have all the main self rescue techniques mastered with a loaded boat and dressed for the trip before making the trip.