T-ville Part 3

On Wednesday, Paul Satwicz, a neighbor and old-time kayaker, and I went down to T-ville to get some boating in. He had not paddled a whitewater river in 15-20 years, but had paddled a tidal rapid many times in that time.

When we got to the put-in, there were several other people with boats around there. Two of them headed up a path along the river looking for Cathy's Wave. We decided to follow suit.

We were instructed to walk up the path, then ferry over to the other side and keep walking up on another path there. We did that and walked up the other side until we ran into a rock wall on the side of the river. We put in here and were able to paddle upstream a ways to a spot with an artificial wall and a gazebo on the bank. There were a few waves here and it is the location of the beloved and mysterious Cathy's Wave (the level was a bit high, I guess, 4.8').

I flipped a couple of times trying to get to the smallish waves, not rolling until the third or fourth attempt on one of them. We then went down to another spot with some small waves. I didn't catch a ride on a wave at either spot. Paul said I wasn't angling my boat far enough upstream on my ferries. He said I was doing better at the second part, but it was still hard to get held on the small waves.

We then ran the rest of the river down to the main play spot. The bridge abutments were completely underwater except for one, which was forming a nasty roostertail. We ran the far right side, which is the normal route at low water and was really ripping. We then moved back to river left to run the rapid containing the play holes. We had time to try to hit the main play hole twice apiece and neither of us made it because of the rapidly rising and fast water and/or because we chickened out because of the hugeness of the hole.

Paul had a great time and I was happy to get his advice and to run as much of the river as we did. We will paddle together again, perhaps as soon as tomorrow (Sunday).