[Paddlewise] my story is better than your story

Here's an interesting site: http://www.pinewateradventures.com/journal.htm

This fella is paddling from Duluth MN to Churchill Manitoba over the next
few years.
But I must take issue with part of his journal, because I have nothing
better to do right now. Please click on May 2 for his journal entry for
that day.

Gripes:

Photo 1) What is described as a "small boat access" is actually, to the
best of my (limited) knowledge, private property. Maybe he knows the owner
and had permission to use that spot. But, since the owner leases the
building there to a jetski rental operation, he is morally obligated to use
the REAL public access 100 yards east and disassociate himself from such
riff-raff.

Photo 2) Here we see him hugging his wife goodbye. It should be obvious to
any astute CNN subscriber that that is not his wife, but is in fact Monica
Lewinsky.

Photos 5-8) Here we see him paddling out into the ship canal in the (and I
quote), "8-10 foot swells with 3-4 foot chop". Ok, maybe the hug from
Monica had his head spinning a bit, but come on! 

a) if there were 8-10 foot swells, they would be surging over the top of
the concrete walls on the sides of the ship canal, and there would be huge
sprays coming off the lighthouse at the end of the the west "pier".  There
wouldnt BE a journal entry for May 3.

b) he never would have made it out of the canal because they would be in
the 10-15 foot range at the mouth, and steeper than hell. These look like
your average garden variety 3-5 footers to me, none of them are coming
anywhere near the top of the ship canal walls. Tis true the canal can be
very tricky even with 5 footers, but 10 footers these are NOT! Or 8.

Anyway, I'm jealous about his trip and I wish him good luck. I think we all
exaggerate OUR experience over someone elses. Earlier this year I was out
playing in some actual 8 footers with 30++ knot winds (and I videotaped
some-when we have 8 footers they are steep as hell and its a wall of foam).
It was more a matter of  being played WITH than anything else, and after an
hour of getting blown and slammed around, we quit just as two others were
arriving. I asked one of them later how it went. He said they didnt stay
out long because it started to get gnarly. My jaw dropped. >>STARTED<< to
get gnarly??!!! STARTED????? I guess his experience was more gnarly than
mine...


And here's a semi-neat site for viewing aerial photos of your next USA
trip. Semi-neat because its a real pain to find the location you want.
http://www.terraserver.microsoft.com/

Wayne


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