Day 6: New York

Swam to Olean, NY today with nothing but sunny skies! Another long, 9 hr day on the water and we are at about the 20% mark of the trip. The landscape is starting to change and the river is starting to flow through the Allegheny Mountains.

The excitement of the day was seeing two other kayakers. So far we have been on the river a week and have only seen a handful of people, and today the first kayakers. James managed to spot a fox but I was too busy looking into cloudy water.

It amazes me how remote the first week of swimming has been on the river. I was able to swim without the worry of running into other boats and the river is narrow enough where I can always see where I am on the river. One of my concerns further along the trip is stolen gear and so far we haven't worried about that being in the middle of nowhere.

The day ended with a beautiful sunset. The red sun glistened over the calm water, giving it a purple tint.

Tomorrow we plan to have another long day in hopes to be at the Kinzua Dam on Sunday. We originally were planning to have five days on and one day rest. Since we are in a bit of a time crunch, we altered that plan. James flies out of Pittsburgh on August 23 and starts college days after. We only have 30 days to cover 350 miles. And the first few days were slow, hard earned miles. We do plan a rest day on day 12, mile 150, if we make it to the dam.

At this point, I think I could swim until I pass out and enjoy it!