Day 30 - Billy & Michael cross Lake Ontario from Niagara to Toronto: CONGRATULATIONS!

Alastair Yu

Today we picked Billy from the beach. He apparently shattered the record for the fastest lake Ontario crossing on a 2 man Feathercraft, beating it by a full hour. In other news, Jason found the Blackops oh Joy.

Andy

A trip to cherry beach cleared up the issue of the whereabouts of Michael and Billy. Turned out they crossed Lake Ontario in record time beating the previous by MORE THAN 1 HOUR! (omg !)[the rest of the day was nearly all gaming].

Calvin

Today we went to pick up Billy and Michael from cherry beach. They were there quicker then accepted. Through we did pick up both at them today, we did not really do much afterwards. For most of the time we just relaxed.

Edwin Lo

Today I woke at half past six and I rode in Steve car and went to Monticle to do the clean up. After finished , I did the Monticle sign for Billy and Micheal because yesterday night they went to Niagara falls to kayak back to Cherry beach. After we finish the sign we went to Cherry Beach to give the sign to them. Then we went back to Monticle to eat the lunch. After, I finished to eat the lunch. After, I finished to eat the lunch I see Edwin (the big one), Jason to play the Black Ops.  Edwin

Edwin

Today we pick up. Me and Edwin Lo did a clean ip at the office. Ee ait fpr sometime for all people to come. Michael and Billy has complete the cross Lake Ontario. Then we clear up on the kayak. And I play “Black op” is fun and I finish the story line. They left a lot of and we did the blog.

Jason

This morning we made a congratulations sign for Michael and Billy. They finished earlier than we expected. They broke the 2 man feathercraft record by one hour. We picked them up and went back to HQ. During lunch Billy, Alastair, and Calvin went to buy lunch. While they were gone I was playing Blackops.

Michael
As we needed to do the preparation for the K2, I actually forgot to type mine yesterday. Anyway, I only did some of the inspection for the K2 that we were using for kayak expedition, and besides, going out to MEC at downtown to buy some kayaking utilities including GPS which could be able to calculate highest and average speed, Altimeter, Stopping and Starting time, Compass etc. After that, we went to a beach or park somewhere nearby to film me, which is probably my last shot :) I just had to yell at the lake, jogging etc. (Since then I just knew that I can't act :P, but anyway the editing team will fix it)
Billy was still super busy, probably got extremely stressed out and still, let me go cross Lake Ontario at night! I asked him why, he just said it's worth to do 'investment' on me. Therefore, I should give my 99% out for the expedition.
Thank you Jerome, Vingi and Natalie to give us a ride (probably the final ride like the day I am leaving Canada at August 20th) at night! Well before our legend began, we bought some food and drinks for the ride at T&T like red bean cake, Pocari sweat and 'Chicken Extract', then had a hefty dinner after that. We talked about Office politics, Billy's experience at Graphic Communications, how to 'survive' at big companies and so on. Technically I was somehow too young to understand Billy's saying about office politics, but as soon as other people started to bring out their experience at office, well we're like on the right track. Afterwards, we just had our last chance to sleep in the vehicle before the ride, while Jerome was driving us to Niagar-on-the-Lake. We arrived there at twelve midnight, and as soon as they left us (Billy and Michael), we quickly did our last inspection, including K2 and our bodies like going for no.1 and 2, sleeping for half an hour etc. Luckily we launched our boat at 3:08 sharp, when is the calmest of the lake. The water was extraordinarily calm, with a little breeze but not the chilling one, and a sudden jump of a big fish out of the water surface because our paddles created some waves and vibration into the water which scared it the hell out! At the beginning, the momentum is not bad as we could be able to reach our highest speed of the whole day - 9.8 km/h. Even though it is almost the same as the AVERAGE speed of K1, but as I also needed to do the balancing and directional controlling at the same time, and I needed to stop if I need to go pee or rest, (comparison to K2, the power paddler could rest, while the direction controller kept going on to make the boat go non-stoppable) I prefer K2. The route is actually so simple, as you can be able to see CN tower at the other side, you will just paddle towards that direction, just to remember not to across the US border.
We basically brought a lot of utilities with us, like air bladder, GPS, binoculars, emergency kits etc. However, the mostly used one is a tupperware box :) That really helps us!!! But by how? Well, I felt a bit embarrassing to talk about this, but to be serious, this tupperware's job is to hold our pee! We can make a hole between the leg and the short, and let your 'little bird' aim and shoot... After that, pour out the water out to the lake and clean it with the same water...
Luckily we didn't go for any no.2, but there's another challenge for us - Billy's getting sleepy gradually because he couldn't get proper rest before, and for me it's basically the same thing because we paddled overnight. As soon as we were at the middle of no where, and we got on to the right momentum, we started to be autopilotting - shut your mind up and sleep but your body is still subconsciously moving. I am not kidding and I can demonstrate it to you :)Luckily, we used a special method (not professional but efficient way) to make us awake, but please bear us not to tell you as it's quite outrageous and insulting :P Well, because we were at open area, and nobody except us will know about what we had talked about, teased about and so on.
The biggest challenge is not the waves, but fighting against the hell-like sleepiness. As I put on the rudder wrongly, Billy found it difficult to make turns, therefore he needed to keep the boat avoiding going to right or starboard side. Billy's face was just like... a heavily 'punched' face with swollen eyes. OMG, I felt uncomfortable to keep going on and on, but anyway once we used our special method, we were back to our momentum...
Last 10 km was probably another hardest challenge - we kept paddling and paddling but still we couldn't reach the CN tower for some reason (feels like the destination keeps moving out from us). Anyway, I felt so familiar once we got along the shoreline of the Toronto Islands, and as soon as we entered the water channel, we saw the lifeguard post at Cherry Beach, well FINALLY. As we reached the beach, at the same time most of the Monticle staffs and students came to pick up us with their nicely designed poster :) Ah... I wanna sleep... at that moment I had this feeling, deeply nailed in my heart. (Well, probably same as Billy too) After the arrival, Billy just said to all of us - this is the last chance to cross Lake Ontario, I won't do it again, sorry you got no luck ~ Thank you so much Billy, to make your right 'investment' on me, hopefully this achievement could enrich my life so much and make myself a different perspective view of my life.