New Under the Sun

Hey guys! How has your saturday been? Mine was just fantabulous!! My youth group and I went canoeing\kayaking at a local river all day long and I can't even describe how much fun it was!
I was in a double kayak with my friend Megan, and we synchronized our strokes pretty well and went super fast! To give you an idea of the location and locomotion...
Location:

(not my pictures)

This is the Black Water River, in Florida, and where we kayaked looked very similar to this.

Locomotion:

(also not my pictures, and not shot at blackwater river. I forgot my camera.)

Kayaks!! While the pictures above show closed in kayaks, we travelled in the open kind shown in the third picture. It was a gorgeous sunny day this afternoon, perfect weather for having fun and creating huge biceps by rowing all day long! I have both canoed and kayaked, and have found that I like kayaking much better. There's something about the rhythmic, figure-eight rowing motion that is very fun and addicting.

We got to the kayak rental place at about 11:30am, and already by then it was quite hot, but the river was lovely, cool, and refreshing. We loaded up our lunches in one of the canoes, and all the kids who were thirteen and under, (like my brother) had to wear lifejackets, and we got a kick out of how ridiculous they looked. :) It took me a little while in the beginning to get a hang of the rhythm of rowing, so me and my friend were constantly banging paddles, but I finally got it and we zoomed along the river. Several moterboats and speed boats passed us, along with a few jetskis, and it was super fun in the low lying kayak to ride the wake of the boats. We stopped at a little sandy outcrop to have lunch, then set out again.

We stopped at a few other places to rest and swim, because the river felt great. There's something about a freshwater river that makes it different from any other type of water. First of all, it's not salty or chlorinated (duh) which is what I am used to, but it also itn't murky and dirty like a lake because it is rather fast flowing, so it's just really fresh and clean and AWESOME to swim in. We did our usual water antics, splash wars and swim races, and on one sandy inlet, we discovered a log pile that extended out into a part of the river that was really deep, so we all jumped off it and into the river with wild whoops.

The whole experience was just great for me, and I just cherish times like these because they are so authentic. I can just jump in the water and laugh and swim and row.

Well, my lovely ladies, that was my saturday, and what a saturday it was...but the whole rowing for four hours thing kind of wore me out so I'll be heading to bed soon.

Goodnight chicas!!

All my love and God's blessings,

Ari