Kittery Point, Me. Memorial Day or the Smack Brace Saturday the forecast was for 20-30 knot winds and 4-8 foot (I think) seas with a small craft advisory so I wimped out and stayed home doing chores :-(. 40 miles from the coast and the trees were whipping around pretty good most of the day so that might have been a good decision. Sunday was for 10-20 knots with 3 foot seas so I left the house at 6:30 because I had commitments for the afternoon. I got to the putin before 8am and loaded up. It seems like I take more stuff with me every trip. Compass, GPS and chart on the foredeck isn't bad, but the other stuff is getting out of hand. Paddle float and pump, spare paddle, fleece vest and rain coat, sp***sons and camera bag (still hoping for a submarine) on the back deck, first aid kit and tupperware porta-potti stuff in the aft hatch, emergency kit tucked away up in front of the pedals, waterbottle and snacks under my legs, sponge, bailer and ropes behind the seat, Jeeze. I set the ramp's location in the GPS but forgot to save it. That's ok because I also forgot to clear the log so if I activated trackback, I'd probably end up back at work where I had been reading the docs and practicing with the GPS during my noon walks the past week. I paddled out amongst the 20 or so new sailboats that had appeared since I was down here a couple of weeks ago. They were all under 30 feet, all sloops except for one ketch or cutter (I can't tell the difference yet). I spent a little time trying to figure out the various riggings with no success except for the simplest. I started working on the forward stroke as suggested by Kirk and some other Paddlewise instructors and while it was all new when I had the canoe out, I found I was doing most of the points already with the kayak. My thrusting was pretty wimpy so I started beefing that up but I still couldn't get the upper hand to punch forward. I'd say it was 90% pull with the bottom hand and less than 10% push with the upper. I worked on it off and on most of the morning with the same results. There was a 10-15 knot wind out of the NW and the plan was to simply exit the harbor and head north past Kittery Point (which is at the mouth of the Piscataqua River between NH and ME) and along the coast for 1-2 hours and then come back. The sun was pretty bright and I was on the upper third of a high tide as I leisurely headed north with pretty flat seas. There was a 2 foot swell every 30-45 seconds with an occasional 3-4 swell as I paddled along a couple of hundred feet from the waves crashing into some 10-12 foot cliffs. That never gets old to me. Everything is still new enough so that riding the swells is still pretty cool stuff (as long as I don't toss my cookies). Glancing out to see a 3-4 footer bearing down on you can be a little disconcerting when you're not paying attention, though. Probably the most awesome thing I've ever seen was during a race to Australia (on TV) many years ago and there was a shot of a humungous wave coming at the stern of a racer. <Shudder!> I paddled north for an hour and a half or so, landed for a snack with the tide surging onto a steep beach, amazingly enough, with few rocks and real sand and then headed back with the wind at my back. The wind picked up to 15-20 knots and I got tired of dealing with the weathercocking so I dropped the rudder which eliminated that problem. I still carry a fair amount of Tetestrone and I'm feeling kinda wimpy because of the rudder. I try to get it back up again after a while but it won't come and I feel too unstable reaching behind me to keep trying. Probably because of all that junk on the back deck. I'll have to re-evaluate all that. It's probably not a good idea to have the paddle float on the bottom. I'm paddling along, minding my own business, watching the waves break over some ledges and trying to regain my pride when a big gust of wind comes along and grabs my offshore paddle blade and won't let go. I'd heard stories in the past about wind and paddles with more or less a "yeah, right - so what" attitude. I think I'll pay a little more attention from now on. So the wind grabs my paddle, I hang onto it and start to go over. I had listened to the marine forecast earlier and they said the water varied between 50-55 degrees throughout Maine. Kittery Point is as far south in Maine as you can get but the water was still plenty cold. Kinda like putting your hand into a gallon of ice cream. I knew I really would rather not subject my delicate bod to that unpleasantness. So with lightning quick reflexes and incredible ingenuity I invented, on the spot, a brand new, never before seen, let alone documented, paddle stroke. It's just too bad the news crews and video cameras weren't there to record this significant event for posterity. There wasn't even another person around to witness this amazing feat, just a couple of sea gulls who cawed their amazement as this event of monsterous athleticisim unfolded. As I was going over, I shifted the paddle a little (by accident, I'm sure), spilling the wind out of the blade and gave the ocean a tremendous smack (out of sheer desperation). To gain full appreciation of this feat, you must picture the Creature of the Black Lagoon rising up from the depths of Hell 18 inches off your beam. No, no. None of that Godzilla crap or any of those wimpy imatations will do. You must stick with the original creature to fully appreciate the situation and gain the proper perspective. Ok, now pretend you're scared sh**less. Bring your blade down sharply while tucking your elbow close to your side and smack that sucker on top of his head. Be aware that depending on the amount of adrenelin flowing and the amount of force used, a second or even a third smack may be required. This stupendous paddle stroke will, forever more, be known as the Smack Brace. Be very careful, however, not to smack the Creature too hard. This will cause him to sink down and pop up on the other side of your kayak where you will have to repeat the process. The un-initiated might think you had lost your balance the other way or something. The rest of the trip back was uneventful until I rounded Kittery Point and had the 15-20 knot wind back in my face. The waves were only a 1-2 feet or so, so I started concentrating on thrusting with my hips in a slightly exaggerated movement and this seemed to move me along at a pretty good clip. I saw a pair of kayaks take a peek around Kittery Point as I was coming in but they turned around and headed back. Dunno why. I think they were the first kayaks I've seen out this year except for one guy when we had the heat wave back in March. I saw a couple of 'yaks on cartops but none on the water? I wonder if they all have some real neat secret spot they go to while I have to paddle out here in the wind and battle seas monsters. Traffic was much lighter than I expected on the way back and I didn't get yelled at (much). Traffic was really heavy headed towards the coast, though. How can people sit out there for hours just to fry themselves on a beach? I got behind a motorcycle with a woman in shorts on the back that must have been close to 200 pounds (the woman, not the bike). Boy was that attractive. :-(. I had commitments on Monday so couldn't go out and that was the best day of the weekend :-(. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
At 09:30 AM 5/26/98 -0400, "Sisler, Clyde" <Clyde.Sisler_at_wang.com> wrote: > >Saturday the forecast was for 20-30 knot winds and 4-8 foot (I think) >seas with a small craft advisory so I wimped out and stayed home doing >chores :-(. As usual, Clyde tells a great story. I thought I'd add a bit to it by telling about the the paddling a few miles north of Kittery Point, Maine. On Saturday my SO and I went out into Casco Bay by Portland, Maine and there was indeed a small craft advisory but it didn't seem too bad. I've been out in much worse advisories. However, I don't recommend to anyone that they venture out in small craft advisories. It's best to build up to the point that you're comfortable with it. If you haven't reached that point, do as Clyde did, and I have many times in the past: stay ashore. Anyway, I think I loaded too much weight into the bow hatch. This was to be a 3-day trip so there was plenty to be loaded but I think the weight differential between bow and stern was wrong. Very quickly I found that it was a struggle to keep my eddyline Raven pointed off the wind. I was continually using correcting strokes to deal with the weathercocking. At one point, when the wind was particularly strong from the west (from Clyde's neighborhood), I was using every bit of strength in my left arm to keep the boat on the right course. I guess because it was our first trip of the season, I never thought of the possibility of the trim of the boat being wrong until the next day when I had taken gear our and re-loaded and found that correction strokes were now a breeze! The cost for this mistake was a sore left arm for the remainder of the trip. We stayed on Jewell Island on the outside edge of Casco Bay and visited Eagle Island nearby, which at one time was the summer home of Admiral Peary, the Arctic explorer. The weather was terrific all 3 days and the paddling couldn't have been finer. For those who might be considering a Maine kayaking trip, the water was 48 degrees F., the air temperature was about 70 or so except when the wind shifted into the south and dropped the air temp to about 59 or 60 F. Also, it's been a great spring for the mosquito population. They're extremely hungry for blood! If you stay right on the shore it's ok but when you venture into the woods, you'll have about 100 "friends" buzzing around and on your body. One other item for Clyde, who seems to be working on his paddle stroke: I found that because my left arm muscle got strained, shortly thereafter my right tricep got sore. I'm guessing that it's because I was doing a lot of pushing with my right arm to relieve the stress of pulling with my left arm. The lessons I took from this were not to make the first paddle of the season a 3-day trip and to make sure I get the trim right when packing the hatches. Bill Ridlon Southern Maine Sea Kayaking Network *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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