Merrimack 9/13

[BOB L]

Five hearty souls set off on a Saturday with forecast of clouds and rain for a four hour paddle and there were no storms in fact is was sunny and nice. We left the Cashman park boat ramp with in 5 min of the posted start time of 9:30 just as the tide was changing. Boats at mornings went from pointing upstream to pointing down stream while we put skirts on and pushed off. Yes it changes that quickly. A nice quiet channel crossing to start everything off smoothly then a quiet trip behind the islands up to the newly redone chain bridge. If you need bridge rigging done check out WWW.bridgerigging.com they have a couple of barges still under the bridge. We slide up the north side shoreline to Lowells boat and saw a few normal wooden boats at the docks and a couple of them being sailed and rowed back for a boat gathering. A short stint against the tide brought us back to the Chain Bridge Island for a rest stop and lunch. A Length paddle against the tide (made much longer due to having to tow young children that got tired) got us back to Cashman Park. Along the way back we did experience a nice motorboater who thought that slowing down to maximize wake and come over close to say hello was the only polite thing to do on a Saturday morning on the river. Young children suddenly had plenty of energy to panic with,but she did stay upright. Over all it was a very nice day and I want to thank the people that helped make Courtney’s first non pond experience a good one, even if she did get to eat 3 cupcakes in one day before lunch (that was her favorite part).

Bob Lambert