Flat water kayaker meets wind waves. hello! i'm a newby kayaker who has been learning to paddle on flat water. Saturday i met up with steve an experienced kayaker at janes island state park on the chesapeake bay. onshore winds blowing about 20 knots as we headed around to the windward shore. soft bottom area with sand, mud and almost peat. we played for a while whilst i tried to get the hang of paddling parallel to steep wave crests just outside the breaker zone... this area is very good for novices paddlers because there is an extensive shallow shelf just off from the beach, so waves initially break way out and just choppy steep trash waves exists for at about 500 ft from the shore. after a lunch break, we headed out to the exposed shore as the winds increased to 25 to 30 knots. i got to experience one new stroke quite a bit... stern brace... quite nice for surfing along the coast. yes i dumped a few times.. no real panic since a wet exit led to standing up, going ashore and reloading. the waves were 2 to maybe 4 ft, steep, and slightly longer than the 18 ft boat length.. so it was one wave after another....what a blast :>) rolling will come, but i see that without effective bracing strokes, it's better to paddle in the swamp. talked to a woman at work today who went on a tour boat for a wedding reception that afternoon... she said lots of folks were green.... too bad for them, i was having fun. bye bye bliven *************************************************************************** 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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