I think he meant the Surfer's wave not the wave at the NOC. It used to be a pretty cool place to practice---I'm not sure if the new wave messed that up or not. If you're looking for park and play ferry/peelout practice its not bad. And there's a picnic table for your wife to watch you from. (It's not an easy place to swim...its particularly dangerous or anything but you will probably swim downstream for awhile and you'll be the only one trying to pull your boat to shore HAVE FLOAT BAGS and be ready to work really hard to get your boat to shore---remember that your wife is basically just a witness in that situation, not a rescuer. Solo practice early on isn't the best idea---be careful).

Winter is a hard time for class II boaters---lots of people at that level aren't yet committed to paddling in the winter (which makes sense because they're still working on their roll and drysuits are expensive) and the rain fills up the creeks so people with class III/IV/V skills have somewhere they'ld rather be: finding paddling buddies can be difficult. But check out the email lists and facebook groups people have mentioned. It doesn't matter if they're actually from your area if you're willing to spend gas money---you need two cars for a shuttle anyway.

If I get a day off sometime soon I would be glad to run the Nantahala with you. I need to go up there sometime soon anyway.