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Day 21 Time: 4 hrs 35 min Distance: 35 km (390.6) I was out of bed early after less than 5 hours sleep, mostly bad sleep at that. The cabin is stifling, the bugs are buzzing my bivy and I'm a bit grumpy. After complaining for some time I started to loosen up and get comfortable. The sun was out so drying and sorting was in order (a short shower had us scrambling). I made some apple pancakes with syrup, we chatted, fiddled and passed the time until early afternoon. At 2:50 we started packing in earnest, getting our river clothes on and tidying up the cabin, it was about 4:00pm when we pushed off into the current, the sun was gone, replaced by dark clouds, rain was visible in many distant directions but for the time being missed us! It was a reasonably warm day, kind of a shame we had not paddled during the sunny calm morning. We made good time with the strong current and long swifts at the islands. The rain did eventually hit us preceded by the sound of thunder, first a sprinkle it turned heavy for 5 - 10 minutes. What had been reasonable was now cold and wet, we continued on to the left of the islands and into the long quiet stretch leading up to the turn and the fast water.
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We had passed a number of spots which looked ok for camping, with the rain it made no sense to stop early especially as we had only been on the water for two hours and it would be a quick 10km to our planned stop. We made the sweeping left turn and entered the fast water, just CI's I imagine but some big waves in places where the shore rocks were flooded, This area is supposed to have some flat rock shoreline, I wasn't seeing any, with one km to go to the site marked by AJ I started scanning, there was a point ahead, the excess water made quite a drop and wave train as it poured over what had been the campsite, I didn't see anything useful at all. Steve had been too close to the right shore and had taken on a bunch of water, he bailed while I pondered a plan, we needed to continue to the '06 site but would look for something earlier. Steve was in a grumpy mood, the cold, the rain; the swamping was getting to him on what was supposed to be an easy float day. I stopped once to check the shore but it was a sponge even at 10 - 15 feet above the river level.
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Finally the rock outcrop came into view, so much smaller than I remembered, we eddied in below, I scrambled out to see what there was. All the rocks we had used in '06 were under several feet of water. The higher rocks were totally unsuitable so we headed back into the thick trees. Pretty lumpy but we found a small space that could be chopped out of bushes to make a spot for the tent that was somewhat flat. The mosquitoes that were an aggravation on the water were thick here, thousands swarming out of the ground cover as I hacked away. Although this was far from ideal as a campsite we really had little option, there were major rapids just downstream so we would simply have to make do. We brought up the essential gear, set up the tent, next was a call to Doug, too late, woke him up again! We find out that VIA is on strike, he will make some calls on Monday and I will call him back on Tuesday evening. We pile into the tent just as the rain starts again, a bit of a surprise as there looked to be some sort of sunset happening just a few minutes earlier. It's impossible to guess what tomorrow's weather will be like. We ate some nuts & chocolate with tea then had a Katmandu Curry miab. It was after 1:00am before we were done and ready to think about getting set up for sleep, I had to venture out, upon returning I could not avoid bringing in hundreds of mosquitoes, perhaps the worst infestation of the trip, even in the small tent a lengthy killing session was required.
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