Successful Completion of River Kayak Level I

Yesterday I finished up my River course with NARWAL. We put our boats in at Cassidy Point and paddled across Prosperous Lake to Tartan Rapids. I have made this paddle previously but found it much more difficult in the highly responsive river boat (river boats are designed for the rapids not for straight paddling across the lake... my conclusion is that I need at least two boats and someone in a powerboat to be my caddy and cart the one I'm not using). Once we arrived at Tartan Rapids we scouted the rapids to get an overall idea of the river features and the hazards we might come across. That being done, we portaged the boats to the bottom of the rapids to get our 'river legs'. Cathy made us ferry back and forth acrosss the current and gradually work our way closer to the drop (where the waves are bigger). As we got more comfortable we started learning more skills (S-turns, slide-outs, etc). As the day progressed and I went swimming (aka tipping over my boat) more times, I learned to brace sooner and tilt the boat more. To avoid being tipped over you have to lean downstream and present the bottom of your boat to the current (this is very counter-intuitive). After many hours spent practicing at the bottom of the rapids we portaged our boats up the rapids and shot down them. Believe it or not it is far easier going down the rapids than it is maneuvering back and forth across them. All in all it was a very good day (despite the partying teenagers who arrived mid-day and generally caused a loud raucous throughout the afternoon) and I slept very soundly last night.
Important statistics for the day...
Number of bugs: 5 billion and 1
Average Number of bugs killed in one swat: 8.5
Number of bugs eatten per person: 10
Number of times my boat tipped over: 6
Number of kilometers paddled: 6 km on the lake; undetermined length in the rapids