We pulled our canoe to the side and were lucky enough that some more experienced people checked in on us and offered one of their paddles, since we had lost both of ours. After this, we managed to make it the rest of our way to the landing point.
This story was popular enough that, when my coworkers threw our wedding shower some four years later, we received gifts themed after it. These included chocolate boats, "Broken Canoe" branded peach drinks, and a gift certificate for "Canoeing the Grand".
It's been two years since our wedding shower. Luckily, the gift certificate didn't expire and we finally got around to it.
When we arrived, the person that met us gave some pointers on how to stear through it. She said that ripples on the water mean rocks. Makes sense. I don't remember getting this advice last time though.
When we were signing the wavers and processing the gift certificate, she gave us our emergency kit and said that on the route we were doing she "promised we wouldn't need it". It wasn't worth telling her that last time we not only managed to get ourselves in a situation where we would need it, but we also managed to lose our emergency kit in the process.
But this time we managed not to capsize! I was much more alert to potential hazards so I didn't take many photos, but here are a few.
We saw ducks, geese, and cormorants. I counted maybe 11 herons and a couple flew right by us. I think I may have seen a couple red-breasted merganser, but I don't know if I was wishful thinking. A hawk or turkey vulture followed us for a bit. There were a lot of people fishing but I only saw minnows.
We did grind to a halt in shallow waters and needed to get out and pull the canoe a bit. There were two other people that started at the same time as us and had the same issue. All in all I think today was an example of redemption.
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