Despite my misgivings, Steve kept some fluids down and didn’t barf after midnight, so I reluctantly agreed to get back on the river.
Peter gave us a lift to the next boat launch down so we could avoid the rapids at Mills Falls, and I parked Steve in the shade on the riverbank while I reorganized and packed our gear. He still looked a little green, but at least the sun was out.
Lucky for us, the stretch of river on the docket for the day was a relatively mellow one. Washington’s Crossing was anticlimactic, save for the threat of Steve barfing out of the back of the canoe. The high water passed us over Scudders Falls without a hitch. As the river became tidal, we realized we weren’t moving quite as quickly as we’d planned and were in danger of hitting Trenton Falls when the tide was low enough to reveal the boat-shredding ledges along the fall line, but we managed to scrape through just in time.
We had hoped to end a 30-mile day in Burlington, NJ for a night in a hotel with Steve’s dad, but the tides (and the smell) of the river below Trenton overcame us and we only made it as far as the Bordentown public beach. I dragged my gray-faced sternman ashore and we called his dad for an early pickup; the rest of my day was spent resupplying and reorganizing our gear for the final stretch of the river while Steve slept his way through the rest of his bout with food poisoning.
It’s one thing to be confronted with an environmental emergency and know that you’ve got a limited time frame to warm your paddling partner up before things get serious, but it’s absolutely horrific to see someone you care about (and depend on) sidelined by a fucking chicken sandwich. Steve’s a pretty unstoppable force when he wants to be and the poor bastard spent these two days exhibiting all the vigor of an overcooked spaghetti noodle. Beyond making sure he was staying hydrated, I was completely helpless- and that’s not a feeling I enjoy.