"Senseless rowing"

This is the clever title of a new blog being created by Dean Pucsek (previously mentioned here) who hopes to compete in the 2016 Paralympics as an oarsman and who's presently training daily at the Ottawa Rowing Club and on the Ottawa River. His description of what it's like to attempt this with impaired vision starts as follows:

Picture this, it’s 5:00 AM and you just arrived at the boathouse for your morning row. Getting out of the passenger seat you see small orbs of light floating mid-air, that must be the boathouse. As you walk towards the floating orbs you start to see other shapes, what are they? Likely the boathouse. Closer still, you can see a door under an orb. Yep, this is the boathouse. As you go around the front of the boathouse you see more floating orbs and hope the path to what you think are your team mates is clear. As you get closer to your suspected team mates you can hear voices that you recognize—nailed it. [...]

I am posting a link to Dean's blog from this site, so that I can follow his progress.

Good luck to him!

Athletes on the water

An article in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday described two oarsmen who get up very early each morning to row on the Ottawa River. One of them, Dean, is the nephew of our friend Carol; I have mentioned him in a previous post in this blog. What the article doesn't say is that he's going to keep this up day by day until November (so he told us)!

Incidentally, the day after I published that previous blogpost the new docks that had been stolen from the Rowing Club in May were retrieved and returned safely to their rightful place.

At the Ottawa Rowing Club

We know a young man (Dean Pucsek) who is training for the 2016 Paralympics, hoping to compete in the rowing team for the visually impaired. To be classed as a blind rower and eligible for the team, you must have

10% of vision in best eye with best correction (from visual acuity above 2/60 up to visual acuity of 6/60 and/or a visual field of more than 5% and less than 20%)

He gets up before sunrise every summer morning and cycles rather dangerously in the semi darkness to the Ottawa Rowing Club facilities at 10 Lady Grey Drive, on the river below Sussex Drive, to practise.

The Club has been in the news. In yesterday's Ottawa Citizen it was mentioned twice:

Two sections of the Ottawa Rowing Club’s new dock designed to make the sport more accessible to athletes with disabilities are missing and presumed stolen [on May 17th].

Four rowers were rescued from the Ottawa River Friday morning after their boat capsized. Paramedics, firefighters and police were called to the river near the Ottawa Rowing Club ...

Tomorrow, Sunday, June 9th, the Club will also be supporting volunteers who come to help clean up the shore line, as advertised by the Ottawa Riverkeepers:

Celebrate Canadian Rivers Day on the shores of the Ottawa River. Ottawa Riverkeeper is proud to welcome the Ottawa Rowing Club as new Riverwatchers! These keen and fit rowers have organized an exciting cleanup of the Ottawa River shoreline in downtown Ottawa. All participants are invited back to the beautiful Ottawa Rowing Club for a BBQ.

Come dressed to get wet and dirty! For your safety and comfort, we recommend that you wear a long-sleeved shirt and pants, canvas gloves, and rainboots.

Meet at the Bytown Museum, at 10 am.