Reflections on a Trip Cut Short

I like ending my trips on a good note. Everyone does. When it's your last day on exchange, you throw a rockin party to say goodbye to all your new friends that you'll hopefully cross paths with in the future. When its the last day of your mission to Perisher (yes - Australia does have snow), you want that last run down the mountain to be nothing but flawless S turns into the park where you can finally stomp that trick you've been working on all week. Even when you're just out for a quick surf at Whale, you'll want your last ride in to be fist pump worthy. Y'know, something to keep you grinning ear to ear for the return length of your journey. That's what we all want.

My trip to Uganda gave me exactly that. I had two months of living on an island paradise, paddling and partying everyday with a wide variety of wild and wacky people whose antics and mischief gave me what was possibly the best Summer of my life. My last day had everything you'd want in a farewell - after a week of nerves, five of us had a killer finale by nailing the three most challenging rapids on the river in one day while the whole gang cruised down with us to cheer us on in a wicked day on the water. Then we had a night that would lead to everyone on the island waking up covered in Zappa stains and several circular red burns accross their chests like badges of honour. Great paddling, great friends, and great times. The next morning, despite a crippling hangover and having to talk my way out of bribing some Ugandan police on the way to the airport, for the forty something hours of transit back to Sydney I was sporting a grin that would make the Cheshire Cat look serious, and was armed an endless list of stories for me to tire my Aussie friends with once I got home.

What you feel like when you roll up after Hypoxia.

 

But, y'know, life isn't always like that.

On our last trip to Perisher, we often joked that anyone who dares utter the term "last run" is instantaneously cursed by Murphey and his laws of douchebaggery, where short of riding the chairlift back down the mountain, they are destined to injure themselves between the top of the hill and the bottom. This was later proven to be true - although whether it was a self fullfilling prophecy or part of some ancient voodoo curse is still up for debate.

 I put the blame squarely on this guy though.

Personally, I find nothing more frustrating about surfing than when the last wave you catch into shore pummels you into oblivion, and all you can do as you cough, splutter and drag your sorry ass back up the beach is look back at all that potential that just didn't turn out the way it should have.

It's hard for me to not view this Canadian mission in a similar light. In an ideal world, I would be returning some five or six months from now, after a long and prosperous second Summer working on the river every day, having a blast every night and having spent the spring paddling at the highest level of my sport that there is. In my mind I had built this up as the defining trip of my freestyle kayaking career - Stakeout is as big as playboating gets and I was finally going to get my shot at it after drooling over videos since 2006.

But instead of returning as a conquering hero with many a story to regale my Aussie friends with; after battling with uncooperative water levels and the French, I'm going to show up five months early; as some shmuck who knocked himself out being a jackass one night and subsequently ruined his trip.

Although I did take refuge in the fact that on the internet, someone has always screwed up worse than you.

And I am now faced with the challenging part of the post. As much as I want to focus on the fact that this page would be more accurately titled Shenanigans, Banter and Three Days of Kayaking; or that each surf on Buseater cost approximately one hundred bucks and two days of university that I'll have to catch up next year (in hindsight I probably shouldn't have calculated that), somehow I need to turn this mopey, depressive, down and out bullshit into some uncliched positivity.

...Sigh, let's give this a shot.

So there I was, down on my luck, unable to kayak and wallowing in what ifs. But then I realised something important. In life, you win some and you lose some. Goddammit I said no cliches. Ummm... what else we got here... Life is like a box of chocolates. Nope. Everything happens for a reason. Try again. Carpe Diem. Nup. The Lord works in mysterious ways. Hell no. I am definitely drawing the line there.

 Badum tsss! Strikeout puns, baby!

Alright, maybe there's no easy way to wrap this up in an overly upbeat way without resorting to cliches. If your last run down the mountain ends in a broken arm, or if your last wave of the day ends in a snapped board, there isnt too much to say is there?

But thinking back to all those times surfing and getting washing machined back into shore; as irritating as it can be that your last memory of the session wasn't a good one and sure, there was definitely a lot of potential out there that you missed out on, eventually your mind gets around to the good rides you had. That despite the fact that you were cold, frustrated and waiting for a wave for what seemed like forever,  you still some fun had out there. You'll know with full certainty that it was worth more to you than sitting at home staring blankly into Facebook, and that regardless of how badly it may have gone, you'll get another shot at it eventually.

Wait... did I just manage it?

Well, regardless if I did or not, that's enough retrospectiveness for one day. In five days from now I'll be back home with my two litres of duty free fun and I imagine I'll have a substantial amount to catch up on with not a whole lot to write about. So until the next time I go somewhere more interesting than Hermann's Bar, this shall be the last of my mental dribblings for a while.

Catchya later Canadia, and see ya in a few days Sydney.

Le Mission du Quebec - Bastardized French, the Cold, and a Tough Call

"Y'know what they call Kentucky Fried Chicken in French Quebec? Poulet Frit Kentucky."

I just couldn't resist. But really, Quebec? Really? PFK? You can't do that. That's not how it works. It's Kentucky Fried Chicken no matter what language you speak. Jesus Christ.

Moving on.

So approximately one day after I posted that the Mistassibi needed five times as much water as is currently flowing down it for Black Mass to start working, the Mistassibi got 4 and a half times as much water overnight. Needless to say; after Devyn, Justin, Huffy and I shat our respective pants in raw, unbridled excitement; we crammed the bare minimum of our meagre possessions into some stinky gear bags so we could head ten hours North with high hopes of surfing more waves then you could shake a stick at.

"Take that you damn French waves! Its spelt KFC!"

Now this mission started off shaky at best, with the carbon boating princesses deciding they needed to bring a plastic boat as a spare in case they broke a nail, er um, a carbon boat. This resulted in our Beachburg-Ottawa leg cramming an impossible 3 people, gear, camera stuff, tents and an inexplicably large number of kayaks into Devyn's truck. Another side effect of this was that instead of arriving in Ottawa at Huffy's place at the predetermined time of 9pm, we instead showed up at a fashionable 1am. This was fine though. Because Huffy's vegetable oil powered pedovan didn't have roof racks on yet and the back was still occupied with a fridge that smelt like it hosted a skunk orgy in the non-too-distant past.

 Our 3am packing efforts. Notice most of the crap isn't in the van yet.

Some hours later, a sheet of plywood had been drilled onto the roof racks and we had a total of eight boats loaded up and at 4am, fuelled by a combination of Red Bull and barrels of that stuff you keep in a deep fryer, we were ready to rock our way North into the land best known for combining chips, gravy and cheese curds into something absurdly delicious.

Poutine baby. It even comes on Pizza. (You have no idea how hungry this made me)

  

I feel like I need to spend some time on the pedovan/mission-mobile/vegie-monster. This thing is the length of a small schoolbus, the height of a small house, yet once everyone's respective possessions and a confusing amount of kayaks (eight) were loaded into the beast; the four of us had maybe one square metres worth of personal space to get comfy in. Considering over the course of the next four days we would spend more time in this van than anywhere else, some may construe this as somewhat less then ideal. However to big wave enthusiasts such as ourselves we were more than willing to put up with being a teensy bit cramped for hours on end in order to log our time on Quebec's explosive offerings that we've been drooling over for the past 6 years or so.

The Vegie-monster ladies and gentlemen. Lock up your children Quebec.

 

One more thing to note which aided our comfort: in order to power this vehicle we required several barrels of vegetable oil in the back of the truck. Now the roads in Quebec aren't exactly ideal. In fact, one might say that Quebexican roads are a combination of the craters you'd find on the moon, and this wierd goopy stuff the Mythbuster guys walked on that one time. You might have worked out that this does not bode well for us and our barrels of sludge. In fact, the result of this unfortunate match up is a cascade of the stuff that cooks your chicken wings schlopping its way through the van every so often to lovingly coat your feet and sleeping bag in sweet, delicious goo.

Just think about that for a second.

 

There was another factor that formed a crucial part of our mission that you can tell from the above picture of the pedovan. Look at it again. Maybe even load the full image. See that lake? Yea that one. The only one in the picture. Notice anything unusual for an expanse of freshwater that large? No? You sure?

It's frozen.

Two things can be deduced from this. The first, and most glaringly obvious deduction: Quebec is really fucking cold. Some people may know that in the colder temperatures Australia has to offer, I'm a little bit of a wimp. If it drops down below 20 degrees I'll start romping around in a hoody. So it came as a bit of a shock to me on our first day when we showed up to the Mistassibi our van got stuck in snow at the take out, and we had to trudge through knee deep snow just to see the infamous Hawaii/Black mass rapid. And with my poor little Aussie feet in hole ridden skate shoes, oh my did I freeze to death.

On hindsight, this may have been a silly idea.

On this trip to Quebec I brought two hoodies, one jacket, two thermal tops, one thermal bottom, trackies, jeans, three t shirts, one singlet and a toddler's sleeping bag that went up to approximately nipple height. I think it goes without saying that I wore all of these, all the time, in a method not dissimilar to this.

The second thing that can be deduced from all that frozen water up there is that when water is frozen, its probably not flowing down rivers.

Not pictured: about 600cumecs and Detonator Wave

But hey! The water's not gone, its just frozen. We've just got to stick it out for a while, paddle the Mistassibi and surf Middle Earth Wave a few times, wait till all the snow and ice melts and Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt, we'll be surfing the biggest flooded river waves the world has to offer in no time at all! We've got this stakeout thing down pat!

"None of us are injured yet! Hooray!"

And so, spirits soaring far higher than the rivers' surface and temperature, our heros (that's us) returned to the Mistassibi, donned layer after layer of thermals then coaxed Pat Camblin and Ben Marr to lead us down one of the largest and seldom paddled big water runs on the planet. Incidently, it's also one of the coldest. Yes, I am going to labour that point. On getting into my boat at the side of the river and negotiating the ridiculous amount of driftwood cluttered in the eddies, I did my traditional splash of water in the face as part of my weird pump up routine. Big mistake. It felt like someone clubbed me in the face with a stalactite. Anyway, after a few minutes of giving several appendages frostbite we were on our way and cruising up to rapid number one.

Now Pat and Benny weren't the happiest with us because the day before we might have accidently forgotten to run shuttle for them, leaving them stranded at the snowy take out in wet gear very far from anyone who spoke English. We probably should have known not to mess with the guys who would show us safely down a few kilometres of very large, very freezing whitewater. In some sneaky yet justifiable revenge, when they lead us down they would float cruisily down over wave after wave, then all of a sudden start furiously paddling to the side as if there something absolutely monsterous that we were about to float into but not out of. They would then leisurely turn around to look at our terrified faces and laugh as we popped over the horizonline to find that we were actually long out of the way of the deadly holes. They did this four or five times. It worked everytime. Cheeky buggers.

Justin sussing out Hawaii

To all of the four people who have been following my adventures somewhat closely, and on the off chance that you're still reading this, sometime in the past two paragraphs you might have thought "Hmmm, didn't this guy concuss himself less then a week before having a crack at this sheer, unrelenting gnar?"

And to you I answer "Maybe I did, but I felt fine that morning!". Well, turns out I was little bit silly, and was not in fact that fine. Coming into the top of the Hawaii rapid, so called because of a fourteen foot angled barrelling wave that feeds into a mammoth hole ridden with recirculating tree trunks thicker than Gandalf's beard, I went over a wave and copped a dizzy spell. 

"Goddammit, now is not the time."

Y'know when you were a kid and you'd all spin around in circles and then race to a tree or something whilst falling over each other? No? That's ok, do it now, its still awesome. Running the Mistassibi with a concussion is kind of like an extreme version of that, in a dangerously cold, watery gravey, Davey Jones' Locker kinda way. Anyway, despite enourmity of the rapids combined with my head spinning like the totem from Inception, we all made it down safely and soundly, and I decided I'd call it a day and sat on the side of the river to watch Ben and Devyn show off for Pat's camera. See Mum, I'm not a complete idiot!

I'm willing to bet good money she rolled her eyes at that.

And that brings me to the next unfortunate occurance of the trip. Devyn's ambitions of securing a photo of himself on the Stakeout Facebook page (check it out, they have much better pics then I do) lead him to attempt a downriver front flip off a wave not really suited in the slightest to down river front flips. You kickflip it! Duh. Judging by the hilarious gopro footage, which once released online will render this entire paragraph obsolete, he bailed out halfway through the trick, and landed with a screech with his arms way above his head. After a few frantic roll attempts, he popped up with a popped out shoulder. I can't stress how stoked we all were that he rolled up. In rivers this size it could have easily taken ten minutes to get a swimmer out of the water, and when salinity is the only difference between the water in the Mistassibi and the water in the Titanic, its pretty clear that we could have been dealing with a much more treacherous scenario very easily.

Once Ben had towed him to the shore, we were faced with a new problem: we are a cruisy 2 hours away from the nearest hospital, theres an uphill, snowy hike to get back to the van, and Devyn's roaring in pain everytime his now flacid arm moves even slightly. I've always been taught through First Aid courses and Surf Life Saving that you should never attempt to reduce a shoulder injury due to the risk of pinching nerves and blood vessels which can lead to the arm losing circulation within twenty minutes, but it was fairly clear something had to be done about this. Luckily all of us were knowledgable and well practiced in the art of shoulder relocation.

Snicker.

Actually, of our group we had a few people who heard some stuff about it, a couple people who has seen it done, and one person who had someone explain to them how to do it. Fortunately with these combined powers and with only one failed attempt involving a rock it went back in far smoother then I thought it was going to. And twenty minutes later it hadn't lost circulation either! Winning.

High five! Oh wait...

So naturally our next step was to start the long arduous trek to the hospital, where Devyn would get his shoulder checked out and I, who had been growing steadily dizzier by the minute, might as well get my head some medical assistance as well. How hard can it be? Just roll up to the hospital, ask to see the doctor and  then - 

"Bonjour!"    /     "Fuck."

"Um... Bonjour... Je... suis.... malade... a mon.... head. Et mon amis -"

"Stuff it, I'll wait till Ontario" (Devyn exits)

Thanks to the bastardised Frenglish of Huffy and I, it was eventually concluded that I have given myself an unfortunate dose of Post Concussion Syndrome (no brain bleeding, stop worrying Mum), am unable to kayak/have fun for weeks and/or months, can probably expect dizzyness and headaches throughout that time, and if I'm really unlucky or give myself a slight head bump I can permanently alter my personality - none of which sounds all that crash hot to me. Particularly the personality thing. I kinda like me.

As for Devyn, I don't think he's got a proper opinion yet on how his shoulder's going to fare up... But shoulder injuries are probably the most feared injury amoungst kayakers, and chances are he's got a long road of rehabilitation to walk down before he can even get close to throwing air on Buseater again.

Disheartened, and one third broken, our six person posse soon discovered that snow was forecast through the next week, and an executive decision was made to get out of dodge and back to somewhere English and marginally less freezing.

~ squiggle ~

So now I'm back here in Beachburg, chilling on the banks of the Ottawa river that I cannot paddle down, pondering the question of "What now?" Breaking things down a tad, I have two options: not kayak in the awe-inspiringly exciting cultural utopia of rural Ontario,

Yep.

or not kayak somewhere else. 

Guess which one wins...

I'd be game to abandon the whole paddling thing for a while and not kayak somewhere cool. But seeing as I came here with a somewhat limited budget, precisely, one that allowed me to sit in Beachburg and do nothing but kayaking and the odd trip to Quebec in a petrol free truck every so often, I'd say backpacking up and down the Americas is kind of out of the question... Which really only loves me one option...

As much of a cop out as it may seem, and by God, it definitely feels like a cop out; my best bet is to call it a day and head home. Every week is approximately a hundred bucks, and its frankly when I'm not on the water its just not worth it. Might as well save my money, and get myself a wetsuit to last me through the Aussie Winter, which will not be nearly as cold as Canadian Spring.

 Or maybe just save up for a different trip at the end of the year...

Anyway, thats enough talk on this one, I can't beleive I had the concentration to voluntarily write that much in one sitting. See ya Canada, was good breifly catching up again.

Week Deux: Buseater, a Cheeky Concussion and Praying to the River Gods

Bussy, Bussy, Bussy... how I've missed you.

Kenya'd Devyn's Carbon Boat. This thing can fly! Photo: Keegan Grady

Buseater; otherwise known as the best freaking river wave in the world; is probably the best motivator for kayakers; otherwise known as the laziest breed of athletes in the world; to brave zero degree water, howling winds and frozen gear that we foolishly left outside so that we can tow onto this beast and launch ourselves skyward. My favourite thing about this wave; what sets it apart from other waves like Nile Special; is the uncertainty that comes with every ride. The thought that with each surf you could either stomp the biggest trick of your life or catch a wierd boil and get pushed into the toilet bowl and cop a mind numbingly cold beatdown is enough to keep even the best paddlers from getting too cocky out here.

The toilet bowl in all its brain-freezingly flushing glory. There's a paddler in there somewhere.

Now a few things have changed since the last time I was last out here in 2008. The first big difference: all of a sudden I'm the only plastic boat in the eddy. Now its always good seeing developments in the sport, and having seen what these boys can do when given a 7 kilo boat with no flex in the hull I have no doubt we're gonna see some sick stuff as they get these things more and more dialled in. But in the mean time I'm probably going to wish I had an extra two and a half grand lying around the place while feeling like I showed up to the Formula 1 starting line in my 12 year old hatchback.

Devyn Scott making me jealous. Photo: Keegan Grady

The next thing to change since last time - filming freestyle has gotten high-tech all of a sudden. Gone are the days when people would just whack a handicam on a tripod and start surfing. Now it seems completely common to have three people in the eddy while four people are on shore with DSLR's filming, taking pictures and using funky slider thingies. Its like hollywood just showed up at your park n play spot. Once again, very pumped to see the results from this development.

Seriously, this was the best carbon : plastic ratio we had.

The last thing that's different to 2008 is a little more regretable. Namely, in 2008 I had some extremely good fortune of surfing Bussy for almost a month in the middle of summer. Unfortunately, in 2012, when I show up to Eastern Canada at the right time in the right season for some supposedly punctual high water, some asshole up in the clouds has shut off the taps and Quebec is dryer than a nun's... sense of humour. In fact, the river that houses Black Mass needs approximately five times as much water as is currently flowing down it. As this is obviously far less than ideal, we've been checking the levels in vain for the past week or so, but alas, I was only offered 2 days of my lovely, and chances are she's not coming back any time soon.

So that left us with but two options. Firstly, the basement dwelling couch surfers Devyn and I needed to earn our keep at Justin's place, and had to clean the place up nice (eh). Which was, somewhat accurately, about as much fun as painting a deck and pressure hosing the front porch. It's a good thing that option two was head into Ottawa for Jeremy's birthday and to mourn the loss of Bussy. 

Now it's about here that the details start getting somewhat blurry. But thanks to the wonderful Canadian tradition of not eating any food for some ungodly reason, combined with the brutal onslaught of the Whistle Game (be afraid my Aussie friends, you better believe this is coming home with me), it seems I considered it a good idea to try a backflip while romping around the dance floor. Those who know the cause of that big scar on my left ankle are probably already yelling obscenities at their computer screen, but long story short I woke up in Ottawa Hospital a few hours later very confused that I wasn't on my couch, and sporting a cheeky class III concussion after being unconscious for an impressive two minutes. After a couple days of sleep and some serious head spinning dizziness, I'm back in business and feelin fine (I felt I should mention I'm ok for the two people out there who might have been worried).

Well I guess with the water gone we should (as should you by the way) start praying to the river gods and/or whatever deity you choose so that we can go off in search of something kayak related to do, lest we get roped into cleaning something again, and on my kayaking adventure that wasn't exactly goal number one.

Catchya next time you dulishus chunk of freezing water

Day 1: The Battle of Border Security and Kayak Smuggling 101

So in an effort to stop the brain from shrivelling up into nothing because of this glorious year of no uni; and for the 2 family members and the odd facebook friend who might feel like knowing what hilariously named rapid I'll be navigating safely and responsibly (that was for you mum, stop worrying), I thought I'd throw this up on the www to give me something to do while I sit on my ass for the next 5 hours at Vancouver Airport. Seriously I'm bored as all hell. So welcome to the Chronicles of Mischeif, which I hope will not turn into a dangerous alternative to drunk facebooking.

Now I don't know how everyone else dabbles abroad, but for me it's just not travelling unless something goes ridiculously wrong. On my way back from Uganda; hungover, sleep deprived and in a freshly tailored African pimpsuit for some reason; a quick powernap in front of the tv screen in Dubai led to me being woken up some hours later to a loudspeaker announcing that it was the final call for a James Rowlinson to board at gate 213. Luckily, I was sleeping at gate 15 so it was only a 10 minute sprint through the airport to board a flight full of business folk whilest sweating bullets, stinking of shame and dressed like this.

Just not quite as enthusiastic. There also wasn't a pirate.

So in a similar fashion, my Canadian adventure did not begin with the leisurely two hour stroll from international to domestic terminal that I had anticipated, but rather being detained for just too many hours by the good folk at Canadian Immigration beause my eyes were too close together. Well, that might not have been the reason. Actually it might have been more to do with my elaborately nutty scheme of border hopping to obtain a work visa which they didnt seem too fond of. Also I also had a kayak with me. And it was probably filled with cocaine and guns. Anyway, I repeatedly heard the phrases "take a seat", "I'm going to get my supervisor" and "final call for Air Canada to Ottawa" until finally the third phrase was not mentioned anymore. Eventually I was released with a "don't you be naughty now, eh" and I was kindly offered a seat on a flight that leaves some 8 hours later. Hooray, that leaves me with another few hours to kill in this riveting airport instead of towing onto the Buseater approximately now. Thanks border security. You guys rock.

 With love, from James.

Hmmm I still have time to kill.

Ok, while I might not be in any position to give advice on how to get yourself to your flights on time, or how to charm your way through Customs, I definitely rate myself as a kayak smuggler. Having sneaked several boats onto Air Canada, who conveniantly have a strict no kayak policy despite Canada being one of the best kayaking destinations in the world, I feel like I've got a few sneaky tips to share on this matter.

First up, flying with a kayak sucks. I cannot stress this enough. They're big, awkward and irritating. You feel like you just walked off the set of this awesome beer ad except without the delicious beverage. Y'know those little creepy fish that they use to eat dead skin off the bottom of people's feet? Flying with a kayak is about as much fun as being reincarnated as one of those poor bastards.

Welcome to Vancouver Airport!

 

But all of that is unavoidable. Try as you may, you'll always accidently run over a couple toddlers with your boat precariously balanced on a trolley obscuring your view. What you can avoid however, is the airline either charging you a fortune to get your boat onboard, or just telling you a straight up "no you cannot take your kayak with you on your kayaking holiday." Here's some thoughts I've gathered over the years to help you smuggle your boat onto the plane regardless of what their official policy is. Obviously some common sense and tweaking comes into play on a situation by situation basis, but essentially this is my kayak smuggling 101.

Phase One - The Preparation

Do your homework. 

Easy solution - if you can fly with a company that will take a boat for free go with them. Emirates rock. But its not especially practical going from Australia to Canada via Dubai, so this isnt always possible. When this is the case, you've got to know the company's baggage policy better then the check in chick. Work out what loophole you're going to exploit long in advance, and preferably try to have a back up one. Theres no point in saying its a surfboard if the airline doesnt take surfboards either. You'll also want a copy of the loophole you intend on using printed out and highlighted so you can point to it straight away and go "yep, put it on that plane" if they so much as think of questioning your almighty knowledge of the baggage handling world.

Disguise that bad boy
I don't have a boat bag because I'm worried about it getting damaged in flight. I've got a surf board bag that says surfing stuff all over it that is large enough to fit a kayak inside it. Want to protect your paddles? Don't get an obvious paddle shaped bag, get something ambiguous and say its full of skis. Even though you'd think Forrest Gump could tell the difference between a surfboard and a kayak, remember that to 99% of the population kayaks are 15 feet long, 40 kilos and good for nothing but fishing.

Phase Two - The Smuggling

Arrive Early and Look Presentable
I dont mean show up 5 hours before your flight and wear a 600 dollar suit. But it definitely pays to show up before the majority of passengers so they can't give you the line of "sorry its a very full flight", and as regretable as it is, very few people are going to go out of their way to help the dreadlocked hippy who smells like Bob Marley. Also, the earlier you are the less grumpy passengers the airline workes have had to pretend to be nice to. Which brings me to...

Choose Your Check in Chick Wisely
I don't mean to throw around the words "ditzy", "blonde", "inexperienced" or "naive" around. But when choosing a check in chick if they look like they may fit any of those criteria zero in on them like a uni student on a free lunch. You want to be served by someone who is most likely to be the least beaurocratic out of the lot of them, and if that means stereotyping people, then by god, you should stereotype.

Not a good choice.

Something worth remembering is that these guys are paid to act nice to people who are in general; sleep deprived, grumpy dicks. Or maybe that's just me. Regardless, anyone who's worked in retail will tell you that a friendly customer will make you want to bend over backwards to help them. So be chatty. Ask how their day was. Joke. If you're really game throw some cheeky flirts in there. All's fair in love, war and making damned sure you can get your boat on that freaking plane.

Never use the K-word

As mentioned before, everyone assumes that kayaks and canoes are enourmous clunky things that will take up half the cargo bay and are just specificly not allowed in their policy. Under no circumstances say anything that could lead them down this chain of thought. Paddle, river, surf ski are all potential danger zones. If they explicitly say "its not a kayak is it?", deny everything! Sure they may express confusion as to why you're bringing a surfboard and skis into a landlocked, flat and snowless section of their country as someone in vancouver did today. Just shrug it off with a "you never know when it might come in handy!" type comment and all will be well.

You'll probably have to compromise with an excess baggage fee

Sure, extra fees suck. But in the end if the only way you can get your boat on the plane is with a fifty dollar surfboard handling charge then thats not all that bad when compared to the alternatives.

And that's about all the entertainment I can get out of writing this. Dammit I've still got an hour and a half left to kill. Oh well, I can only hope the next post can offer, say real pictures or videos that I didn't just steal from google. In the meantime, for the 3 people who read up to this point, here's my video from uganda again.