LIVERMORE FALLS – The lesson for the day: Don’t forget the duct tape.


Twenty-five paddlers joined Barbra Barrett, coordinator, and Charles Knox, executive director, in the Androscoggin River Source to the Sea Canoe Trek on Saturday from Livermore Falls to Twin Bridges in Turner. Though this section does include Tolly Wolly Rapids (Class 1 to 2), it is not the most technically difficult one to paddle.


That’s not to say the day wasn’t adventurous, however.


It started out benignly enough on glasslike, flat water, the sun tanning necks of life-vest-clad boaters. The first rapids were passed without incident. Shallow water with slightly submerged rocks did no more than mar a boat’s bottom if one were unfortunate enough to slide over it.


Lunch took place on a sandy beach where nearby grazing cows meandered into the river, enticing 5-year-old Phoenix Weeks of Wilton to edge closer to get a better look.


During the break Doug Beck of Auburn Parks and Recreation presented a talk on birds of the Androscoggin. The day had been punctuated with sightings of bald eagles, osprey, blue heron, kingfishers and spotted sandpipers. Beck also spoke of calls he had heard that morning along the river of indigo buntings, yellow warblers and a raven – to whom he called back, he said.


Participants had many questions for Beck, but the weather was beginning to deteriorate, so Barrett called for continuing down the river.


That is when the adventure really began.


Hitting the most difficult rapids on the river, several boats capsized, spilling paddlers and contents into swift-moving water.


Paddlers in one tandem canoe managed to avoid nearly flipping, though not before Brittany, an aptly named Brittany Spaniel, bailed out, swimming easily in the moving water.


“He just thinks whitewater is stupid,” said the dog’s owner later, with a laugh.


Barrett waited in the Kevlar lead boat in an eddy just below the rapids, throw rope in hand. The rope never left the bag, but wreckage was everywhere, it seemed. No one was injured ,and all made it to the bank with paddles, boats and belongings soaked but intact.


Well, almost.


It seemed a valiant effort on the part of Doug Beck, who attempted to avoid capsizing his borrowed Old Town canoe when he and his son made the run through the trickiest rapid. The two nearly got stuck on a large boulder, and, try as he might, Beck was unable to prevent the boat from flipping over. The boat’s hull sustained a footlong gash in the effort.


Stopping to bail and regroup, leaders and participants worked together to patch the boat’s bottom. A combination of surgical gloves and moleskin was the initial plan, though most were dubious about its effectiveness.


Then came the duct tape, like manna from heaven. Though many realized the value of the silver sticky stuff, few remembered to bring any. “Duct tape Don,” as he was dubbed, came to the rescue. The boat was patched, and the group was off again, only to be stopped by the threat of a lightning storm.


Stopping on shore by an abandoned farmhouse, the group prepared to hunker down and wait out the storm in safer surroundings – lightning can be a severe threat on open water, particularly in an aluminum boat, like one pair. But the storm passed north of the group, and travel resumed with no further incident.

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