> I went out to a local pond last night to try out some of the forward > stroking tehniques in the canoe. Got to the pond about 4:30pm and > there was a 5-10 knot wind blowing and a few storm clouds not to far > way. The water was kinda ragged but no waves. > I put in and headed into the wind and tried the technique. The first thing I found was my stroke was too long so I shortened it up so I was planting the blade somewhere near the vicintity of my knee (I'm sitting). I would then pull the blade back as perpendicular as possible while thrusting forward with my hips. (I felt like a horny teenager trying to pull is first date closer.) With a little experimentation, I decided my paddle was about 6 inches too long so I started grabbing if by the shaft with the top hand. The paddle was originally for a soloing a 15 foot Mad River. The wind is now in the 10-15 knot range and some small waves are forming and I'm moving along into it tryng to get my body parts to work in unison. There's a lull in the wind when I run out of pond so I head towards the end of the pond which is about half a mile away. I'm paddling along pulling and punching and thrusting and seem to make fair progress but now have a problem steering. I experiment a little and come up with sort of an inverted sweep with a more pronounced "J" stroke at the end and that helps a little but I'm still switching sides every 4 or 5 strokes. Meanwhile the waves are picking up and I'm starting to surf on some 1 footers. I look down towards the end of the pond and see a lot of rough water but say "what the hell" and continue on. I get down to the end and turn around into a 15-20 knot wind that doesn't let up and start back. The waves are a steady 1 foot high with an occassional set in the foot and a half range. I have a pretty fair task ahead of me and revert pack to my old style of muscle paddling. I'm tacking back and forth making fair progress. I'm on a shoreward tack with the wind blowing me in faster than I'd like when a guy comes out of a house and tells me I can putin there at his house till the wind dies down. We chat a little bit while I'm paddling like hell just to stay even with him. I finally thank him for his offer and continue on. A little further on a good looking young woman comes out and offers me the use of her dock until the wind dies down. I tell her I've been out in much worse than this and I'm having a good time. She insists and offers to drive me to the putin. I decline and she says she's afraid I'm going to get swamped and drown because I don't have a PFD. I say, "Sure I do, it's right there behind me." She says "Well at least put it on". I look at her, think for a second and say "I can do that". So I pull in and get slammed around on some rocks while I put it on and take off with her watching me unitl I went around a bend. When I'm tacking away from shore, I'm heading into the waves and they're smashing into (not over) the bow and by now I'm soaking wet but holding up real well. Bear in mind this is a little 11 foot, single seat canoe with about 2 inches of freeboard so waves tend to get a litle exciting. About 2/3 of the way back to the putin the wind dies down to about 10 knots and the waves subside and the rest of the way is pretty easy. All in all took about 35 minutes to get back, including chat time. I tried the technique a couple of times with some success but had trouble steering so I went back to the old way. As I'm pulling into the putin, there's a boat tied to the ramp and healthy young blond in cutoffs and bikini top is wading out into the water. Then she starts bending over sweeping her hands in the water and I figure she's rinsing herself off or something. As I get closer, she looks up and says hi and I try desperately to maintain eye contact. Her SO comes down the ramp and I ask "How ya doin' " and he says "Not so good". They've lost their car keys overboard and the woman was trying to find them and they don't have a spare set anywhere. I say "What a dummy!" and of course tell him my sad story about losing my PFD and keys last year. For some reason, that doesn't make him feel any better. Well, I guess I didn't really have a fair chance to test out the new technique what with the wind and the waves and the good looking women and all. Maybe I can get out again with the canoe tonight and the 'yak over the weekend and try again. *************************************************************************** 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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