Class 1 rapids

See that white looking water behind Scott in that first picture? Well those are part on the class 1 rapids that we canoed today. We drove about 2 hours up to Seminary, Mississippi to canoe on the Okatoma River. Scott and I had never been on the Okatoma but it is ranked #1 in the state and was the only canoeing outfitter in which you let out where your car is so we didn't have to wait for the outfitters to come pick us up when we were done.


Chance was excited to be getting in a "ship" again, even though Scott and I were a little concerned since we had never been on rapids before we have both been canoeing a bit in the past and Scott has a bunch of boating other experience. We were let in with 4 other boats a group of college age guys. When we reached the first waterfall we didn't hit it just right so we ran aground on some rocks. Scott kicked off his shoes, climbed out and pushed us back out into the stream. We did better than the other guys though two of them ended up in the water (not on purpose). We seperated from them after that so I'm not sure how they made out in the end. There were four more waterfalls and a few more rapids on our way down the river. We got better and better on each one though we ran aground a couple more times, Scott and I both ended up out on a sandbar push/pulling the boat once. There was also a part where we both had to get out because there was a tree completely blocking the river, we had to sit on it and lift the canoe over.
Chance had a good time watching everything the river was full of turtles with beautiful trees on both banks providing lots of shade. Chance was worried whenever one of us had to get out and when we went over the rapids we whined but as soon as we got to the other side he would squeal and say "yay" clap and generally be very happy that we made it. Chance was merely vocalizing what we were all feeling. On the last waterfall we aproached at just the right place, got down and let it fly down the river, that was when we all got wet. As we went over a wall of water sprayed up and over the boat, I was soaked up to my chest and poor Chance was basically floating in the boat. We stopped at the next available place to bail out the water. All in all we had a lot of fun. We were all soaked and super tired when we got to the end but we had a great experience. Chance is still talking about it right now he turns to me every few minutes and says " push, ship, wet, out, ship, push, daddy, wet..."


I took this last picture just before we left, that is the bus that drove us down to the river.