Utah: Day 7 - Canoe Trip 2

The second day of our canoe trip started out with some examination of our river map.The second day was our longest day, with us completely about 24 river miles. In comparison, we only covered 11 river miles the first day. Included in those 24 miles was a really tough section of the river, where the wind (called 'Mariah' by our superstitious outfitters) was strong and could seriously impede our progress. However, we didn't have to deal with that until until the afternoon. We reloaded our canoes and off we went, keeping a steady pace throughout the day.
We say a number of birds throughout our trip, but the first bird we were able to photograph, ironically, was this guy:Canadian goose! As the day progressed, we dedicated a fair amount of time to 'heron-stalking'. There were a large number of blue herons living around the Green River, and we say lots of them flying by or standing on the shore as we floated down the river. Here are some of the better shots for our efforts:At one point when we had to navigate an island in the river, Joelle and Ian took one side and we took the other side of the river. Turns out their side was really shallow, and they had to climb out and pull their canoe for awhile:We had lunch on a tiny beach prior to the tough part of the river. It wasn't the nicest lunch spot we'd found, but it did the trick.The next part of the river was definately the toughest. Garrett's shoulder was really hurting him and the wind came up strong and steady, pushing against us as we traveled the 5 miles around the Bowknot Bend. It was a long haul and pretty tiring, but we rewarded ourselves by floating with our canoes once we were past the worst of it.After floating down the river, it was about time to find a campsite for the night. There were several options for us, except the first one we found was small and hot without shade, and we couldn't find the second one until we flew right past it in our canoe. We were stuck moving onwards until we saw a nice sandy island that looked like a good spot. As we pulled up to the island, we spotted a blue heron eating a fish!We checked out the island and found it to our satisfaction, although it too didn't have very much shade. We played frisbee in the water next to our beach, before setting up our tents and making some dinner.>After dinner, the girls relaxed while the boys played with their cameras and captured the amazing landscape surrounding us.
Once the sun went down, we started a fire and sat around relaxing for an hour or so. As we were sitting in the dusk, we saw a beaver swim by! Cool! We didn't get a picture of him, though.