Blasting Saturday both Feb 20 & Feb 26 at 2:00PM Click to view
At the moment, there is a massive slab of rock aimed at the put in area. They are moving a lot of rock, but the scale of the project makes progress seem painfully slow.
Large boulders at the base of the put in ramp have been broken up for removal.
The Ocoee season open appears to be in jeopardy. The webcam is aimed at the blasting area, but there it still a massive slab aimed at the put in. Details here
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 Indoor pool roll sessions are Mondays from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on January 4, 11 and 25; February 1, 8 and 22 and March 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29 at the Warren/Holyfield Boys' and Girls' Club at Berne and Marion Streets near Grant Park.
Directions: Exit I-20 at the Boulevand/Grant Park/ Cyclorama exit. Go south about 1/2 mile to the light at Berne Street and turn left. Go another 1/2 mile and you'll see the facility, a large brick building on the left. Turn left on Marion Street. The pool entrance is in the back — enter via the gate at the far end of the building to unload boats. Boats must be cleaned before entering the pool.
This is your opportunity to learn to roll, practice your roll to stay sharp, teach a fellow paddler to roll or work on other techniques such as wet exits, hand rolls, deep water reentries, etc. The indoor heated pool is a great place to hone these skills during the cold winter months.
Fees: $7.00 per session to cover heated pool rental.
GCA Membership is appreciated.
ACA membership is required for insurance.
Current ACA members, be sure to bring your ID number.
GCA members can join ACA for $30 Individual or $45 Family
Non-GCA members can join ACA for $40 Individual or $60 Family
There is a one time introductory ACA membership, six months for $10 available to people who have not taken advantage of this before.
And there is the option to pay $5.00 for an “ACA event membership” for each session.
We need eleven people at each event for GCA to break even. |
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Hey
all you Georgia paddlers, hope you had a safe and fun holiday and
July. Keep praying for rain. Just got back from Paddle Georgia on the
Flint River. Like all of Georgia’s rivers, the Flint is extremely
low and suffers from lack of rain. GCA had a large presence with GCA
safety boats guarding the 300+ paddlers on the Day 2 journey through
Yellow Jacket Shoals and during the week with deadfall and technical
places.
Vincent
Payne did an awesome job giving the safety talk before the paddle
started with the “Paddle Safety Bingo” game. Even those of us who
have heard the safety talk too many times to count listened and
learned something. If you ever have to do a safety spiel for a large
group, this is an effective, fun way to get the job done.
The
Flint is extremely clean, but we had decided months before to do a
clean up on Monday’s paddle. I learned a lesson about assumptions,
and did not say what NOT to pick up since I had seen very little
trash of any sort the first 2 days. We had a huge shock when piles of
tires and trash were brought in that evening. One canoe with 3
teenagers had 13 tires in it! (Don’t ask, you need to see the
pictures). We ended up with 35 tires and over 800 pounds of trash.
The DNR Ranger told me it was the biggest clean up ever on that
section of the Flint!
Most
of the tires were placed long ago by fishermen to give fish a place
to nest. We have seen the same thing in Lake Lanier. Tires were
generally considered “non-hazardous” and OK to use for this
purpose. The research has proved different and we have begun removing
them. If you remove tires from a river, please keep the following in
mind. If the tire is submerged, will remain so and is adding
stability to the riverbank and is not a hazard, I generally suggest
leaving it. If it is sticking out and has exposed areas and might be
a breeding place for mosquitoes, it is an excellent candidate for
removal.
Be
extremely careful when handling and removing tires. They harbor
critters that can bite, sting and generally cause you to have an
unpleasant journey. Ask Jim Albert: I have not seen him since he
helped us on an Upper Chattahoochee River event and had multiple
critters from a tire gang up and attack him in his canoe. Tires also
have mud, sand and rocks and are extremely heavy. Balancing a tire on
a kayak is almost impossible: canoes have more success but they still
take excellent balance and control. Unless you have a place to off
load your tire quickly you will be traveling down the river with the
beast.
The
other issue is disposal. Tires can not be put in a regular dumpster,
they have to be recycled. If you don’t have a trash collection
exemption or figure it out ahead of time, they can cost $3.00+ each
and you have to get them to the recycle center. If you are planning a
clean up, tires must be addressed and disposal determined before you
start the event. If you have some tires that are bugging you, by all
means get them, but if you are just generally doing a clean up, I
suggest “NO TIRES.”
Rivers
Alive’s (www.riversalive.org) 10th year of supporting waterway
clean ups is this year. We are producing special T-shirts and will
have 2 shirt choices in the offering along with boat stickers.
Registration is open so get your river event on the calendar.
Upper
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (www.chattahoochee.org) is holding the
first headwaters “Save the Hooch” event at Indigo Joe’s
Restaurant in Cumming on July 26. This is a Sweetwater Beer event, so
beer will be featured and on sale along with music and food. Come
help us “give our liver to save the river.” Times and other
information on the UCR website, See you on the river, keep it clean!
by
Bonny Putney, GCA “Trash Queen”
From The Eddy Line, August
2008 |
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Our
Spring Extravaganza is planned for the weekend of May 14-16, 2010.
The canoeing and kayaking portion of this event will take place on various rivers in the Nantahala area, the camping portion of this event will be at Smokey Mountain Meadows Campground.
The campground officially opens on May 1, 2010 and the phone number after that time will be 1 (828) 488-3672. If you would like to contact the campground earlier than May 1st to make your reservation please call 1 (864) 420-8077 and speak with Elaine. They offer tent sites with no water or electricity, sites with water and electric only, and full hook up RV sites. Be sure to specify that you are with the GCA when you make your reservation.
We have reserved the pavilion for use on Saturday night so that we can have a group dinner. The pavilion has a roof and picnic tables so that we can gather and eat even if it happens to rain on us. This campground has very nice bath houses for those of you who are interested in such things!
We hope to be able to offer canoe and kayaking trips on the Tuckaseegee and the Nanty and possibly other rivers as well depending on water levels. I need volunteers to lead the aforementioned Tuck/Nanty trips so if you would be willing to lead a trip on one of these rivers either Saturday or Sunday, please contact me (Lisa Haskell) at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
and let me know. Hope to see you that weekend! Keep watching the Eddy Line and the website for more details! |
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The
Georgia General Assembly is in sesson, and no river is safe for 40
days and 40 nights. What can you do about this? Sign the Petition to
Protect Georgia's Waterways.
Over 1100 people have now
signed the No Water Grabs petition - can you? Go to www.nowatergrabs.
com to let your elected leaders know you want all Georgia waterways
protected.
Georgia is home to more than 70,000 miles of
rivers and streams, but with a population of 9.8 million people,
these abundant water resources are being strained. This is especially
true in Metro Atlanta, where half of the state's residents are
located.
Some believe that the abundant water resources of
Georgia's smaller cities (the rivers in which we paddle) should be
piped to Metro Atlanta to support its continued growth. This process
is usually referred to as "interbasin transfer" because
water is moved from one river basin to another and not returned. Such
transfers could significantly impact the economic future of Georgia's
smaller communities, threaten the natural heritage of our state and
dry up the river that we love to paddle.
A better
alternative is water conservation and efficiency. Metro Atlanta could
save between 130 and 210 million gallons of water per day by
implementing water efficiency and conservation. Interbasin Transfers
are costly, very controversial and would take a long time to provide
drinking water. The cost of efficiency measures range from $0.46 to
$250 per 1,000 gallons saved or new capacity. Water efficiency FIRST
is the most cost-effective and timely solution.
Let your
elected leaders know you want all Georgia communities and waterways
protected - go to www.nowatergrabs. com today and tell your friends,
particularly your paddling friends! 1/27/2010
Dan MacIntyre
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Update v7:
You know that feeling you get when you scout the drop really well from the shore, discuss it with your buds, then jump in your boat for the run and when you get to the drop you realize you've no clue what to do? Well this is nothing like that. It'll go like clock work.
Take the plunge. "Help you I will", Yoda.
If you would like to be coordinator for a GCA canoe / kayak trip in MARCH I will help you though every step of the trip. My goal would be to help someone who has yet to take the plunge into trip coordination but is ready; although they feel they could benefit from a bit of assistance.
Trips on smooth water, black water, real short lakes, class I and II and “class II with the occasional class III thrown in so I can swim” are all fine. Don’t rule out canoe / kayak camping trips or kayak fishing trips. Florida, Alabama, South or North Carolina or Tennessee trips are doable as well. This will be your trip and you get to do it your way (with my coaching and help with the leg work).
Trip coordination is fun, easy, gratifying and not stressful at all. My schedule will fill up quickly so ACT NOW!!
Vincent Payne, 678-343-5292 cell
Lisa has the completed the Master of Trip Coordinatorship course by coordinating a four day trip to Florida in January. She made the weather very nice everyday. This is certainly an advance trip coordinator skill.
Congratulations to Lisa Haskell the latest graduate of the Vince Payne School of Trip Coordinatorship. Lisa led a trip o the Cartecay River in December and completed her studies on her own because I was on the injured list.
Congratulations to Robert Harris the November graduate from the Vince Payne School of Trip Coordinatorship. Robert led an overnite trip that went off smooth as lake water. He even included a couple of members from a canoe club out of Minnesota for the final leg on Sunday.
Congratulations to Marshall Busko the October graduate of the Vince Payne School of Trip Coordinatorship. (Yeah, I made up that word.) As his friends anticipated, Marshall graduated at the top of his class.
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