Tahuna Breaks

The header for this website was inspired by New Zealand band "Tahuna Breaks". I got hooked on them at the gym in Queenstown. Great band. Here's a song.

Only in America

Only in America would you have a reaction like this.

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Full-size cardboard figure causes New Jersey bank standoff

Published: Friday, November 28, 2008 | 4:32 AM ET

Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MONTGOMERY TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A standoff at a New Jersey bank is over after police learned a "person" seen inside was actually a full-size cardboard figure.

Officers went to the PNC Bank in Montgomery Township on Thursday night after an alarm went off. They saw what they thought was at least one person through the windows of the bank, which had its blinds drawn.

The area was sealed off and three nearby apartment buildings were evacuated as a precaution. Meanwhile, authorities used bullhorns and made telephone calls in a bid to make contact with whoever might be in the bank.

After repeatedly failing to get a response, a SWAT team entered the building and discovered the cardboard figure.

It was not immediately clear what set off the bank alarm.

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They didn't think it odd that the person never moved? I wonder if it was a McCain cutout?

Only in Mexico

Read this first.

Three tigers escape from a circus truck in western Mexico

By The Associated Press (November 6, 2008)

MEXICO CITY - Authorities says three tigers that had escaped from a Mexican circus truck were recaptured after police distracted them by throwing them chickens.

The local newspaper Cambio de Michoacan says the escaped felines holed up in house in the western city of Zitacuaro. When the tigers started breaking down the home's fence, police lobbed them chickens to eat until a dogcatcher and the animals' trainer arrived.

An officer at the state police office in Zitacuaro says the tigers were loose for less than an hour.

The big cats were recaptured and taken to a local police station where they were held until their owner agreed to pay for the chickens and damage to the fence.

This little story raises a few questions in my mind, quite possibly in yours aswell.

Question 1: Was the truck moving when the tigers got out?

Question 2: Why did they bring in a 'dog catcher'? Tigers are cats. Couldn't't they just have held up a flaming hoop?

Question 3: Are these the 'dog catchers'?

Question 4: What goes into a selection of a house when you're a tiger?

Question 5: Is a police station really where you want to hold tigers?

Question 6: The only thing the owner was liable for was paying for the chickens and fence?

Of weddings and windmills

This past weekend I headed up north to Sarah's brother's wedding. It was in beautiful Bruce County. The 300km journey was well worth it as the wedding took place on the beach at Inverhuron Provincial Park. The weather on the way up was drizzle and pretty crappy but as I got closer things began to turn around.

The beach, complete with a boardwalk aisle.

Ferris coming down to meet her parents.

Making it legal.

Ok, so for years I've heard about the windmills they've been putting up there. I've heard a few bad things but mostly good. A couple years ago I saw a few blades for these badboys heading down the highway and had a post with picture commenting on their size. Well I'm here again to report on how massive they are. Wings are 130ft long each! They overwhelm the landscape and I couldn't take my eyes off them. So incredible.

Dominating the landscape.

That is my car parked at the base of one. I'll take one windmill please and make it xtra large.

Temagami River Rerun

All summer long we`ve been trying to find people who want to be trippers next year so during 5th session we took these people out on a bit of a training run down the Temagami River. Remember, a few weeks before this I had attempted to do this river with a bunch of LIT`s and it was.... well, an interesting ending. This time however Luke (my fellow instructor) and I had more confidence that we would actually complete the entire river and end up in River Valley in the four days. It had been a week since I had gotten my appendix out and wasn`t allowed to lift anything however we still decided to take 4 boats for the 6 people in our group. We would switch up who was soloing as to build skills faster.

Sunscreen time at Central Access point on Lake Temagami.

Luke overlooking an old dam on a tiny lake we hiked to.

Here is the boat that is pinned at the top of a big set. Look out for strainers like this. We went around it; river left.

We all took turns soloing on flat and moving water and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it came back to me after a few years off. Here I am popping out after taking a 2m ledge.

Trevor with a huge cross bow draw. Jamie is loving it.

Part of Island Falls. We took the road less travelled here and took the west side which had a portage 6 inches wide down a cliff face. I didn`t mind it too much though, I still couldn`t carry anything.

Trevor and Jamie at the top of the cliff with the canoe.

Ragged Chute. Jen and Trevor trying to ferry across a little to close to the waterfall. They kissed it once but survived.

In the eddy at the bottom we found what had been a nice cedar strip canoe that was pretty mangled. Luke and I cut it into a few pieces and paddled it out the next day through 3 sets of rapids. I want to make it into a bookshelf.

Overall the trip was amazing! The guys and Jen learned a lot and by the last day could scout rapids and properly run them amongst other things. The water was at spring levels but warm, the weather was hot and sunny, there weren`t any bugs to speak of, the fishing was great and the wind was at our back. An ideal trip for sure!

Rob - 1 The Appendix - 0

It all began on Monday afternoon. I remembered a basket of peaches in my car the my mom had given me the day before. Throughout the course of the afternoon I ate about 6 in rapid succession. Later on that evening while at AC eating pizza I noted that my stomach hurt. I blamed it on the peaches and continued to mow down on the 'za. Before going to bed I had a popsicle (a great diet I have here, I know) while noting that my stomach still hurt. Not really thinking much of it I went to bed and turned down an early run when it still hurt in the morning. After a bowl of Rice Krispies I headed to AC to get some pepto from the nurse and had to mill about as they finished their meal. Anyways, a couple hours later I could be found lying in the floor in my room writhing in pain. The pain reminded me of food poisioning but it couldn't be that b/c it was too high, in my stomach as opposed to my gut. I asked Morgan to find the doctor. After driving over to Boys' Camp it started to get really bad and after some poking by the nurse and doctor they thought it was my appendix. The pain was reaching excruciating so I got a shot of demoral (or whatever it was) and headed to the hospital. A day later I'm back at camp minus the appendix and feeling alot better.

sorry, no pictures, I didn't think of bringing my camera until I was at the hospital. it would've been cool though, trust.

oh, i get the bottom bunk now too. score!

Temagami River Debacle

On Friday night I rushed up north from being in the city for a couple days to lead a 4 day LIT trip down the Temagami River.

Day 1
8:30am - Leave camp
12:00pm - Put in at central access on Lake Temagami
2:30 - First portage (50m)
5:00pm - Make camp on Cross Lake. Chris (one of the leaders) appears to have pink eye

Day 2
6:50am - Wake up. Chris wakes up and one eye is swollen shut, the other eye doesn't look good.
8:10am - leave site

An eagle's nest.

10:15am - after paddling over 10km we reach the dam at the top of the Temagami River
10:45am - I give a lesson on basic white water paddling just below the dam. A group from Camp Kandalore is nipping at our heels.
12:00pm - Finally leave the end of the portage after throwing our stuff in the empty boats that we were running but can't get started on the next set of rapids due to a group in front of us. Kandalore is also held up.
12:15pm - I'm going crazy and have to eat. lunch
1:00pm - Pull up to the next rapid "keel hauler" and I head off to scout it. There is a full sized motor boat with steering wheel and everything pinned in the middle of the river at the top set. You can tell people have tried to get it out with wires and stuff but no dice. This is a very long (600m) set of 3 ClassII-III rapids. The water is big but runnable so Chris (one of the leaders) and I run 4 empty boats down improving every time.
2:30pm - Pull up to the next set "short and sweet", Class II. I scout it and remember that I ran it last year fully loaded with campers with no problems so we try it again. My boat, fully loaded with the wannigan and food barrel takes on A LOT of water and we almost tip but luckily make it to shore and can bail it out. The next boat comes down while we watch from the side and they fail to make it far enough to the right and tip. Barrels of stuff, day pack, paddles, etc. are floating down stream. Nyssa (the other leader) and Carrie make it to the shore while their boat is pinned. They can't pop it out and I tell everyone to start portaging gear. I run up shore, jump in the river and let it bring me downstream to the other side to pop the boat out. A couple of guys run down stream to ferry around in the current and grab all the gear that is floating away. This portage took forever b/c of driftwood at the end of the path.

Chris and Sarah coming down 'Short and Sweet'.

4:00pm - We pull up to Heron's Leg rapid (Class II - III) with Kandalore right behind us as they had better luck on the last set running it fully loaded. We portage all the stuff after I scout it and remember that the end of this one is really technical. Myself and 5 eager LIT's agree to begin running the boats after scouting it together. Kandalore passes us. The top section of this set is big but a straight shot into a calmer pool. An island in the middle splits the river in two, one way is inpassable while the other offers a 1.5m drop. Kandalore ran it and we're confident we can too. Katie and I are the first to take the plunge. It gives one big wave after the initial drop but nothing we can't empty out on the side. The other two canoes make it as well but take on a lot of water. Katie and I head for the technical bottom section. This section has a big staircase and at the bottom a huge rock that you have to go left around really quickly. We make it down but kiss the rock along the way. Dave and Anthony aren't as fortunate and get sucked to the right of the rock down the bigger section of water. It isn't pretty but they make it out bumped and bruised while Katie and I gather their paddles and help them with the boat. I hadn't realized how tough this section was until I did it and didn't have enough time to warn the others. Poor planning on my part. Here comes John and Robyn... They nail the rock and flip, their boat pushed up on the small island behind it along with them. They push it back into the current and are able to make it back to shore. Turns out John got sliced by the canoe after falling out on his lower back and is going to need stitches... This section took forever with all the portaging, running, flipping and rescuing.
7:45pm - I have called camp via the sattelite phone and arranged for someone to come and pick John and Chris up at a spot about 13km away. It's going to be a LONG night for them. It will be good to have Chris go to the hospital too though as his eyes aren't looking so good.
8:45pm - We've hit the last 2 sets of rapids (CI, CII) and the stars are coming out.
9:00pm - We have at least 3 km of paddling before we come to a site that I know of so I offer to "eek out an existance" in a tiny, sloping clearing. This proposal is unanimously voted down. I pray that something good can come of this.
9:10pm - We pass Kandalore who's site (if you want to call it that) is tiny at best.
9:20pm - I offer to go as at a fishing camp if we can camp on the lawn. This motion is unamiously passed so I timidly head up to the only cabin with the lights on and ask. The French Canadian guy that I meet takes me to see the owner who actually isn't there so he offers to guide us by motor boat to a campsite he knows is empty. We have no lights on our canoes and it is now dark so I gratefully accept. Along the way he meets his friend who takes the front of the pack while he guides the back of our 6 pack of canoes. We are entertained by country music and "row, row, row your boat" in a french accent. We are led to an awesome campsite lit up by a flashlight from the baot. I ask if they would be so kind to drive Chris and John out (now about 10km) to Loon Bay to the evacuation point. They agree but one of the guys has to drop off his wife.
10:15pm - We begin to set up camp and about 20min later our friends return and are off with John (who by this point can't paddle due to the 2 inch gash in his back) and Chris (who is destined to wake up with 2 swollen eyes).
11:15pm - Nyssa and I decide to cut the trip short and pull out at Loon Bay as well in two days time, thereby I decide to sleep outside on a rock and look at the stars (horrible idea).

Sleeping outside did let me see the sunrise which was really nice.

Day 3
9:00am - wake up followed by a bedhead breakfast of pancakes
1:00pm - leisurely paddle for 3km to have lunch
4:00pm - open our gigantic bag of candy and eat gelatin candy until our stomachs hurt

Dinner scene

10:00pm - head to bed with a stomach full of garlic bread and pasta

Day 4
7:00am - wake up
9:00am - leave site
10:15am - we take a big detour our way to the pick up point courtesy of an LIT's navigation
12:15pm - we meet the bus at Loon Bay. Hooray!

The Latest and Greatest

Last week I had the good fortune of taking out a 3 day trip with a group of 12 year olds to Algonquin Park. We had a good time even though the weather tried to put a damper on things every chance it got.
The rain stopped of course as soon as I got the tarp set up. From left to right this is: Jordan, Mike, Jackson, Bennett "Cypher" (an LIT who was in my small group), James, Ned, Alex, Simon and Jeremy "Omni".

After 4 portages of various lengths that all seem to take too long we got to our destination. While scoping out a campsite Simon and I ran into a cow Moose and a calf. The calf was on the other side of a small bay and began to swim towards us and the mom but promptly turned away when the mom told it to. Unfortunately at the last portage my camera got put in another canoe.... crap. A beautiful sunset followed the evening rain.


I noticed as soon as we entered the lake that something was up. The water was way too high, like almost 3 feet too high and it was beginning to kill a bunch of trees around the perimeter of the lake.

Here we are paddling through "the forest" because the water was so high.

I took a glance at the map the next day and we went to find the problem... This is the before picture.

This is about a half hour later.

Team demolition walking on water.

LIT - wrap up

A week ago, LIT wrapped up in a formal sense as half the kids went off to one of the three sites around the lake and the other half went home to return for their practicum in a couple weeks. Overall the entire LIT experience was amazing. It was truly great to involved with something at Pioneer that wasn't the same old boys' camp experience. As I was a small group leader I got to know the 7 LIT's in my group really well and was privileged to help them grow both in leadership and their walk with the Lord.

This is my small/large group of LIT's that I got to mentor. This was the day that we led program. The theme was Super Mario.

This is the group that were on my trip. However this picture was taken a couple weeks post trip, hence the cleaned up looks everyone is sporting.

Wow, being involved in this program which meant so much to me when I was 16 was truly an honour that I'll never forget. Maybe one day I'll be back to do it again.

LIT to me

Over a week ago I started working at the LIT program at Pioneer. After a few really fun days of precamp and getting to know all the other staff the kids arrived on Thursday. I have 3 guys and 4 girls in my "small group" going into grade 11 or 12. The object of this program is to help transform these people from campers to staff by building their leadership skills and faith over the next 2 weeks This is then followed by a 2 week practicum at one of the 3 main sites around the lake. To get everyone working together right off the bat they are thrown on a canoe trip a day and a half after arriving. On this trip they are challenged through bible studies, personal devotions and opportunities to lead the group in navigation, camp building, etc., thus building a tight community.

So, on Saturday morning we headed up north to Temagami on our adventure. We put in on the northern part of the lake and then headed over to Diamond Lake, up to Lady Evelyn Smoothwater Lake and out at Mowat Landing (about 150km north of Huntsville). The trip was awesome and some highlights were: really awesome campsites, sailing in big wind, people having to jump in to save stuff floating away in the big wind, our pirate flag, sandy beaches, improv night, evening program, playing 20 questions.

Fishing with Maple Mountain in the background.

Sunset over Maple Mountain.

Matt and Jess on the first day.

Emma stirring some pasta sauce in the wind shelter of a pine tree.

Back At It

I got up here a week and a half ago and have been having a great time seeing old friends, swimming, going to worship and teachings and just hanging around. The new tripping building is still in process and we're really under the gun as we send out our biggest group of the summer in a week. So far we've just been fixing some boats as our stuff is spread all over camp and we have no space to work in. Hopefully the interior of the building is going to come together over the next couple of days or we're pretty much screwed.

here's a monster large-mouth bass that I caught

inside a chalet

North

Hey, this blog is back. I'm heading back up north for another summer at Pioneer Camp. I'll put up a post when something exciting happens.

Out for a while

I'm heading to Fiji, Australia and New Zealand for a while. Check out my site with Ben who is coming with me for a chunk of it. benandrobdownunder.com

"TO THE LIMIT" - with the OPC Trippers

Alright, at the end of every summer of paddling the OPC trippers go on a trip with just themselves. Typically this is a trip which is used to relax and chill after a summer of hard paddling. This year however we had a different mission; to push our bodies and most importantly our minds to the breaking point and to show Algonquin park and the mighty Nipissing River who was boss.

I'm going to break it down for you day by day as deemed by those participants during the trip itself:

Day 1: Vacation
Entering the North West corner of the park we past through North Tea Lake (the scene of a storm that almost killed me last year) and Biggar Lake. While doing so we showed our paddling proficiency by passing lots of people all the while sporting a Jolly Roger out the back of my canoe.

Many pirate friends were made yet none would hand over any gorp despite repeated demands from our armada.

The victims (minus the two on the right, they left the next morning and paddled out to meet their mommy. but seriously they paddled out to go on a trip with their parents)

Day 2: Physical Annihilation

This all seems surreal now that I'm home, but this day started out beautifully as I was up for the sunrise. Check out the pictures.... it gave no hint at what the day would contain.

This was the last my fishing rod was seen intact as it conveniently broke in two on the next (first) real portage.

**Stop reading now if you don't like portaging insanely far, paddling insanely far, going crazy or crappy maps. **

After a breakfast of bacon and eggs (a tripping rarity) we (the four remaining) set off on our adventure. 10 minutes in we saw a dead beaver belly up down a tiny creek leading up to a 2.0 km portage. This would be our first of eight portages that day totaling over 8km. To add onto that was the over 25 we actually paddled. (I use the term paddled loosely as we had to drag our canoes up a couple creeks where the water was really low) What made this possible was the fact that we did all the portages in one trip, two people had barrels and canoes, one person a barrel and the wannigan (red box with pots and pans) and one person, deemed "paddles" had a barrel, the paddles, the day pack and other miscellaneous stuff. At some point along the portage you just tell your body that pain is only in your mind and remind your body that you are in charge here and it will stop when you tell it to, not the other way around.

This was one of the creeks we wandered up for a couple hours as it got smaller and smaller. If you and the people in the other canoe stood up you could just see their heads. Here is a picture of Jeremiah on the left and Kelsey on the right.

This was an intense 12 hour day and we FINALLY found a campsite at 8:30pm. A postage stamp sized thing that hadn't been used for a really long time, but I've never been so happy to find such a crappy site.

Day 3: Mental Decimation

Ever looked at a map and said "that doesn't look too far"? Ya, that's what we did. We forgot to factor in that for every curve on the map the river probably did 20. We passed through an old POW camp early on in the day which was cool as it had some log cabins still visible and fences and roads and stuff albeit all grown over.


After that the river looked the same for the next 8 hours and by the same I mean exactly the same. To compound this was the weather that day. It was overcast and the lighting never changed. It looked the same at 8am as it did at 5pm. It was like we were stuck in a time warp or on some sort of conveyor belt of water and bushes with a beaver dam here and there.

This is me looking over the shore only to see that it looked the same both ways and the end was nowhere to be seen.

I caught a Garder Snake.

Oh ya, we had lunch at a falls that was along a portage. I had to take this picture on black and white b/c otherwise you'd see the colour of the water, a scrumptious tea brown, yum.

We had a pretty good campsite that night but it was overrun with mice. We actually locked one in our barrel all night and it managed to take a taste of everything. Luckily we only had to eat oatmeal and then we were outta there. There is another story of a mouse but it's gross so I won't post it. It was at this campsite that the number of trout was crazy. Cleaning our dishes in the river obviously gets some food in the water and these brown trout were more than happy to eat it. They were everywhere. Unfortunately my rod was snapped and we had left the reel at a portage so I had to catch one in a bowl. My first trout.

Day 4 - Out of the Woods

If you survived Day 1-3 you were lucky enough to leave on day 4. We got picked up on Cedar Lake. Thanks Darryl for driving, it was quite the hike.

Kelsey and Charity paddling out.

Our family portrait.

This is back at camp with our driver. Darryl is the man, he drives for Pioneer all summer (usually a bus full of yelling kids) going all over the place. Without people like him we'd be going to Devine (the next lake over from Pioneer) alot.

Temagami River

I know I haven't updated this in a while... here it is

During 4th session I co-lead a trip down the Temagami River with Jeremiah. It was awesome! The first day we paddled over 27km in 6 hour, a stellar performance by the best camper paddlers of the summer. Oh, we scored some huge tail wind and sailed for 4km of that 27 (it only took about 20 min).

Here is Jeremiah and Nick while we were sailing. Jerry is steering while Nick holds the canoe paddle with a rope tied to the top holding the sail up.

The sail in all it's glory with Mitchell, Isaac, Jacob and Andrew (from left to right).



Here is Tim and Andrew hitting some rapids on day one.


Tim and I coming down the river.

We saw this pinned Camp Kandalore boat and tried to get it out for an hour but no dice. I really wanted a free boat but the water filling it was way too heavy.

Some nice clouds on day two. Finding a campsite after this was brutal. We actually had to camp on the same site as the girls. So humiliating. But to make up for it we woke up early and left before eating to get a jump on them. This scored us an awesome campsite early the next day. It was in the middle of the river on one of two islands with some small class one rapids going around the islands. The kids practiced whitewater on the three courses all day. So relaxing.... (see them practicing below)

Early morning on Thistle Lake.

A couple family portraits.

On the third day the girls passed us as we sat on our island campsite. After looking at the map we decided that there weren't many campsites left and that the next day we'd be fighting for the same one. So, a plan was hatched which we then saw to fruition the next morning. We rose at 5:30 and passed the girls on the opposite side of the river than they were camped while they were still sleeping. We scored the awesome campsite at the waterfall that we wanted and seeing the look on their faces when they came around the corner and saw us all set up was priceless.

The waterfall site.

Morning mist