Saturday morning I met a couple of buddies and we drove the 45 minutes to Portsmouth Harbor. They both had some Lake Superior kayaking and had spent most of their time here in the northeast paddling rivers and lakes. We got to Portsmouth Harbor (NH) about 8:15am, about mid-tide with a light fog. We unloaded the kayaks from both trucks, packed them up and went off to park. When we got back, I realized I had left my paddle and my spare in the garage at home. Boy did that suck! I had the option of calling it a day or going off to the Kittery Trading Post to buy another. We loaded my kayak back on the truck, I gave my chart and compass to them and told them to just paddle around the harbor for the next hour or so. If I wasn't back by then, I wouldn't be coming back and they were on their own. The Trading Post was only a couple of miles away and was already crowded when I got there. I found a cheap paddle for $40 but it weighed a ton. I found another one that only weighed half a ton for $69 so now I have 3 paddles. Anyone need a spare? I know where you can get one real cheap. I got back to the ramp, unloaded the kayak again and found my buddies out in the harbor without too much of a problem. We just putted around for a while, checked out an abandoned house on one of the islands, had lunch and then started up the coast. We saw some surf a quarter mile out and went out to investigate. We found a little gateway through some rocks you could get through if you time the waves just right and went in and out of it for a while. I started playing in the waves as they surged up a 45 degree ledge. I'd paddle up the ledge with the wave and then back paddle off with it. If you catch everything just right, you're in water the whole time. If not, well you pick up another scratch or two on the bottom. We found some larger waves a little farther up the coast and started catching some as they pounded over some rocks. These were probably 2-3 feet at the most and were kinda hard to see before they started to build. On one of them, the low brace wasn't enough to hold me straight and I got hammered before I could switch to a high brace on the other side when the wave pushed me towards some rocks. I caught one of the rocks and dumped in about a foot of water. I was able to get out of the boat before it clobbered me too. A little later, I got sideways to another wave but got the high brace set on top of the wave as I started to go over. That was my first real live successful high brace in breaking water and it sure felt good. I got to do a couple of assisted T-rescues as one of the guys dumped twice. He didn't have a forward bulkhead and I couldn't raise the bow at all until he got on the stern. We played in those waves for about an hour until they disappeared with the tide. We had a leisurely trip back, spending a lot of time watching the bottom for crabs and sea urchins. We got back to the ramp at dead low tide and got to slop through a few yards of mud that I didn't know was there. *************************************************************************** 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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