Erospaynes...

I've had several people comment on the canoe oars that the guys and I are holding in our picture out on the dock, so if you're one of those people, here's the tale:

For several years now, I have hand crafted "Erospaynes" (pronounced "Arrow-spain), the Adrean name for "Long Oars". These oars are a unique design found only among the canoers of the Riverbluff League, and are given to the most experienced of us. They are designed to be strong, fast, and able to take quite a beating. As I said above, every single one is hand crafted, so no two are alike. They each have their own look, their own feel and, consequently, their own name.

Let's start on the right with Popeye. His oar is Thwaindoom, "Dare Catcher", made in the spring of this last year. Brandon's oar is Erovais, "New Oar", which was actually reshaped out of an older oar which belonged to David Heath. Along the neck is the inscription "Sethvie ain Thrior", which means "Born of the Storm", since it was completed as a thunder storm rolled in. Jesse's oar Vaross, "Water Flame", is the newest out of them all, and sports a new kind of decorative style; that plant motif along the blade glows green and aqua in the dark. My oar is Rendesyon, "Night Wing", and is the first and oldest of all the Riverbluff oars. Along its neck is the inscription "Inoss ais Dar"; "Even in Darkness".

Why use these oars instead of buying some from the store, or borrowing some used ones from a neighbor, you might ask. Don't we have regular canoe paddles in Riverbluff? Sure, we have plenty of your everyday paddles to go around here, but these long oars are better on two levels:

1)standard canoe paddles often warp or bend somewhat when you take a hard stroke through the water, which in turn shaves off some of the effectiveness of every stroke you take. Over the course of three hundred miles, it can make a big difference. Ultimately they bend or warp because most store-bought canoe paddles are not made to really handle rough-and-tough, day-in-day-out canoeing. On previous Riverbluff trips, we have broken both wooden and non-wooden "store-boughts", and it's usually when we needed them the most. Erospaynes don't bend, and they don't break...period. They are specifically designed for the long distance, high-endurance canoeing that we do here in Riverbluff.

2)from a less technical side, canoers develop a connection with an oar that is uniquely their own, and it becomes stronger and stronger the more they travel with it. My oar, Rendesyon, has carried me literally HUNDREDS of miles through just about every condition of the River you could hope to see, and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

So there you have it, the story behind our oars. I must confess, however, that while I have the utmost confidence in my work, I have never put my oars to the kind of test that they'll face this December when we take our trip! I'm sure even Riverbluff oars have their limits; whether we'll discover them on this coming trip or not remains to be seen.

-Daniel