It was a good day. The weather was forecasted to be hot, but it wasn’t bad–until about 1:30 when most of us were in sight of the Scottsville bridge. Before that, there were often breezes on the river and white clouds sometimes provided a break from the sun.

It was not the most social or collegial of the WSC boating trips. The 15 sporting club members were joined by over a dozen others, making it awkward to bring everyone together. The James is a big river, easy to spread out on, which is good since there were plenty of tubers on the water during our mid-week run.

The water was very clear and warm. The water level was reported to be at 3.5 feet, which made the one real rapid everyone had to handle a “class one on steroids,” as our Reeling and Rafting host put it, but it was not a bumpy paddle at all. That said, we wouldn’t advise running this route if the water level was much lower than that.