"Stick in my ass" 45 mile paddle Staples to Palmetto

Joy said "I have a stick in my ass" and for some reason this ended up being the theme for our paddle yesterday. We started at the Staples dam with our new friend Liam in who was in a Wilderness Systems kayak and us in our trusty canoe. Joy immediately commented on how low the water looked. Little did we know the impact the low water level would have on our results for the day. Liam attempted to use his rudder and was having difficulty in the first stretch of water. He was knocked over twice in the first mile and after losing his hat and pumping water he decided he better turn back now.
We were sad to see him go but we also understood that the low water levels would reveal many obstacles along the way. I can't even count the number of times that we came to a dead stop on rocks and had to get out of the boat and walk it yesterday. Each time we moved the boats over the rocks we were expending extra energy and taking extra time to move down river. Our friend Grady passed us about 3 miles from the Lulling 90 bridge. He started at Rio Vista and he was moving along at a good pace. He asked if we were going to stop at Lulling and we said we hadn't planned on it. He said he would see us there and he paddled on ahead of us. We saw Grady just past the bridge and then again at Zedler Mill. We were very thankful to him for waiting for us at the end. Grady made it to Palmetto just before dark and we did not get there until well after dark. Not long after the Lulling 90 bridge we encountered a dead cow in the water. Between the smell of the cow and the smell of gas this section of water was not fun to paddle. As far as other wildlife for the day we encountered 3 or 4 snakes. I was very glad that I did not see one of the snakes. Joy saw the snake it was half on a branch and half in the water and Joy said it was about a foot from me as we paddled by. We started on the water at 10am and we were hoping to be off the water by about 7:30pm, before dark. Well our plans didn't go exactly as scheduled and we ended up on the water until 9:30pm. At Zedler Mill we contemplated pulling out and getting a ride to Palmetto but we knew this was our last scheduled long paddle before the race so we continued on. Right after Zedler I made a bad call thinking we could go under a log and we got into a bit of a sticky situation. The log was high enough for the boat to go under and it had two pieces of barbed wire going from the shore to the log. I was lucky to miss the barbed wire and we both ended up getting out of the boat to move past the obstacle. It would have been a much easier route to go thru the shallow water on the left. The good news about our late night travel is the headlamp packed in the safety pack. The bad news... I only had my prescription sunglasses making everything past about 5 feet blurry. Our new goal was to make it to Ottine dam before it got dark. For anyone who has paddled this stretch of the river you know that this dam is very difficult to see and it has a rather tough portage. After 38 miles of paddling we found ourselves pulling with all our might to make it to the dam with a little light left to make it around the dam. We succeeded in getting there and pulling the boat around the portage just as we lost the last bit of light. I put my headlamp on and we jumped back in the canoe. I have had paddlers tell me a headlamp does not work on your head and I quickly realized how right they were. All of the bugs on the river come right at your head and you are left with a blurred sea of annoying flying things around you. Joy passed me a quick tie and I rigged the headlamp to the front of the boat. The hole that I rigged the light to was on the right side of the bow giving us a good idea of what was on river right and no idea what was on river left. Somehow we managed to navigate past all of the small obstacles and we enjoyed an exhilarating ride at the very end of the trip when the water picked up and we followed the flow with very little sight and no control as to were the boat was going. I laughed at one point and said "this is great, we not only have a crappy light but you have a bow person with blurry vision telling you how to avoid the obstacles. After surviving the quick moving water we both looked ahead and said "what is that?" There was something across the river and we really were not sure what it was. A minute later we laughed at ourselves as we realized the Palmetto bridge was right in front of us. We got about 10 feet from the bridge and bailed out of the boat getting ready to lift the boat onto the bridge. We were very thankful that a couple of paddlers showed us this trick the first time we came to the bridge. The water is only about 2 feet deep and by jumping out and holding the boat we can nose it onto the bridge with minimal effort. We had a wonderful surprise of a grilled up dinner when we made it up to camp. Jenny, Nick and Dillon had dinner waiting for us when we arrived.