Obion River CITO

After much delay and schedule conflicts, the Obion River Blueway CITO was held this past weekend.  There was good turnout, despte concerns the river would be high again after recent rain.  However, the river had gone down several feet and after first glance did not look much different than the day in March when caches were placed on the river.

Coordination was made with TeamKC, where 1/2 of that team aided in transportation of cachers from recovery to the launch location.  Without that assistance, the CITO would have been hampered.  Departure was about an hour behind and we were underway around 11:15 am.  The landing at the launch area was full of mud and made placing kayaks in the water really difficult.  As an experienced kayak/cachers, I wore my  SCUBA diving boots and I recommend those type of boots for all cachers who kayak since our game does sometimes require getting in and out of the boot and no need to mess up a good pair of hiking boots.  The mud came up to nearly the top of the boots.  I did not look forward to the muddy conditions of the recovery area. 

Current was a little swift at the beginning and only required light paddling.  I clocked myself going 2.0 MPH just letting the current take me along.  We stopped along the way for caches and I really got out of the boat.  I did observe the terrain at most the cache locations was very difficult with mud either being very slippery or would sink upon stepping on it. 

As we neared Highway 45 West north of Kenton, I observed the current was not nearly as fast as when he departed.  Thus requiring more paddling.  All the caches on the river were found, one needing some attention and I had brought extra log books with me. 

Met cachers during the event that I had not met prior, Geo-Huff whom we had emailed each other since I began playing in 2005 and looknaround.  As seen in other CITO's and kayak runs, cachers always get things done, work together and over come obstacles to achieve their goals.