We got an August summer day at the end of September with the temperature hitting 32C, which was awesome. The wind also hit 32 kph (or higher), which was not so awesome. Of course this means I found a way to take the afternoon off of work and float the Bow River in Calgary, Alberta.
The float almost didn’t happen, at least as a group. People sort of came together in the YYC SUP CREW Facebook group for Calgary paddle boarders and there were eight of us. Then the screenshots of the wind forecast began to appear and the number started dwindling. At one point I’m pretty sure everyone but me was planning on ditching. C’mon folks, it’s a river. The current is going to carry you in spite of the wind (or so I thought).
Five of us did show up at the Graves Bridge Boat Ramp in Calgary around 2 pm to launch on Wednesday. Lena, Alex, myself, and another couple who were theoretically floating with us, but quickly disappeared from sight. We didn’t see them again until we were packing up and they drifted in behind us. This was my first time meeting Alex. I had floated with Lena previously, and along the same stretch.
I purchased a third party, low-profile fin for my board after breaking a fin the previous week when floating the Bow River with my daughter. The new fin is shorter, extending only four inches deep into the water as opposed the nine inches of the board’s stock fin. It was wonderful to buzz through shallow rapids without dragging fin once.
The smaller fin has less surface area despite being longer, thus it doesn’t track as well as the OEM fin, but it is “good enough.” It also solves a much larger problem making it a win.
I very much like Alex’s rig, but that is because it just looks darn comfy. I would be scared of biffing it in rough water and I was sure he was going to hit the drink a few times. He didn’t amazingly enough. I do admit I was following him with the action cam running home for some good footage there. Unfortunately the card in the camera failed and none of the video was recoverable at all.
The only video I got was of Lena being very chill on the river, but I am beginning to suspect that being chill is her super power. All three of us would be going through shallow rapids, both Alex and I paddling to keep our boards straight, and she would be drifting through sideways or backwards while drinking her beverage, completely unconcerned.
Lena is a nurse, very educated, and pleasant to chat with. I’m hoping to get her and her boyfriend over for dinner at some point this fall as I am sure Lena will get along well with my wife.
The wind managed to be both a blessing and a curse. It kept us from feeling the brunt of the heat as we floated the river on the hottest part of the day. It also made it tough going when we hit some of the slower moving portions of the river. I think we found ourselves being blown back up river at least twice and had to work at it to keep moving forward.
I managed to work in a selfie in the finest “Ray tradition” and also found an oddity along the way. I have no idea why someone would park a busted easy chair on the bank of the Bow River, but they did. I suppose it’s a comfy way to fish?
I tried to do some fine-art landscape work along the way, but it is darn tough in the middle of the day with harsh lighting. The light wasn’t friendly to me for most of the trip, to be honest, and there is not much here that I consider porfolio worthy.
It took about 3 hours to go 13.7 km, with a few stops to chillax along the way. It seems to me that it took us half an hour longer than our previous trip down the same stretch on September 7th, but the wind. Oof.
We had a lot of fun, I met someone new that I’m going to have a few more adventures with, and it was just a great start to the fall season. Losing some video from a failed card was a bit of a bummer, but everyone came off the river in one piece so it was all good.
Photos and videos from both my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and OM System Tough TG-7.
