Ocoee River -- July 17, 2009

All photos by Barry Smith except the pictures of Barry, which were taken by Bill McKinley with Barry's camera

Participants were Mike McGinnis, Greg Grant, Edward Stockman, Bill McKinley, Barry Smith and myself in solo open canoes, Paula Haynes in inflatable kayak, and Mark Singleton in kayak. Weather for the trip was marvelous for mid-July -- partly cloudy and mild, no oppressive heat and humidity.

The trip being on Friday, we didn't have to contend with the water level spiking up in the middle of the day with water from the Upper Ocoee release. The level was consistent and pleasant the whole day. It reminded me of the days before the Upper releases became a regular weekend thing.

While there was carnage on the river that day, it wasn't from our group. We had very good runs of all the rapids, and some memorable entertainment events at some play spots. Bill tried to follow Barry's act in surfing a rather large hole, with predictable results -- he had to swim out -- his boat just wasn't as big in relation to the hole as Barry's Whitesell.

The best entertainment of the day happened at Diamond Splitter. Barry did his usual ferry move from the top eddy on river right to the eddy on the left above the approach to Witch's Hole, then made the ferry back to the right to the micro-eddy behind Diamond Splitter Rock, an eddy smaller than his boat by a good shot. Then he tried an off side ferry back to the left above Witch's Hole and didn't quite clear the hole.

Barry became firmly stuck in the hole on his off side, surfing on a cross brace for an extended period of time while staying very dry, but getting nowhere as far as extricating himself from the hole. His Plan B was to switch back to an upstream on side brace to try to bring the boat back around and back out of the hole. After several times alternating between this move and the Plan A cross brace, he finally succeeded in getting out of the hole with dry hair, but a not-so-dry boat.

This was one of the longest surfs I've seen at Witch's Hole in either an open or a decked boat, and probably the longest that I remember seeing that didn't result in swimming or rolling out of it. This old man isn't getting older, he's getting better! (I can call him "old" with impunity since I'm a month older than Barry.)

One item really worth mentioning, as Barry was executing his LONG unintentional surf, several rafts came down from Table Saw headed directly toward the chute into Witch's Hole where Barry was stuck. To the credit of the raft guides, every single one of them diverted their run to the right side of Diamond Splitter Rock, thereby avoiding a collision with a surfing canoe. These were mostly NOC rafts, but there may have been some from other companies as well. I wasn't watching them so closely as I was intent on watching Barry's ride. Kudos to the raft guides!!

Barry was also the official trip photographer. Thanks for passing along the pictures for use with the trip report, Barry! I wish we had pictures of your epic surf at Witch's Hole.

By the time we got to one of our favorite surf spots just above Torpedo, we were mostly a bunch of tired, whipped puppies, except for the youngsters in the group. We still managed quite a few rides on the wave there, thanks mainly to the rafting companies. They launched so many trips late in the day that day that we had several long waits for raft traffic to go by before jumping back on the wave, a welcome respite in our tired, played-out condition. It also seemed like a positive sign that at least a part of the economy may be getting back on track. It was a pretty crowded afternoon for a weekday.

Thanks to all the participants for making this a very memorable and enjoyable trip. As is often said, "Many happy returns...."