Two paddles, or not two paddles: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to solo
With one paddle for weight saving fortunes
And potentially find yourself on a sea of troubles,
And by opposing redundancy? To die: to sleep;
No, more paddles; two, and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
One might have been heir to, ‘tis a consummation
of the thought. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
So that's the question. Taking a solo trip this week. I will cross the river David, which could potentially require some poling through in a spot or two. From there to Rosebary over a loooong carry. From there the mighty Tim River, fraught with beaver damnits (I'm going to count!). Then uphill to Queer, and out via Ralph Bice.
I have always carried an extra paddle on canoe trips, my previous two solos or any of the trips I've taken over the years, a little piece of mind but also a little pain in the backside. I'm wondering what anybody else does with this particular redundancy. I have never broken a paddle, but of course if you do the big snap, that's a pretty big deal. I broke a piece off the grip of a paddle on my first canoe trip, and then there was Dougie E. who, when we were scouts racing each other to our campsite, and somebody yelled out (just for fun), "Look! There's a naked woman on the beach!", Dougie dug down a extra hard on the next stroke, the boat surged incredibly, then the blade snapped right off his paddle, and came scooting out of the water past the bow of the canoe. It was hilarious. Even under like circumstances I'm pretty sure I could not do that to a paddle, but Dougie was a linebacker.
Of course, if everybody tells me "I never take a spare", and I snap my paddle, I'm blaming all of you for my misfortune.