This one isn't isn't macho or record distance or anything but it was a lot of fun. Yesterday I went paddling in the Santa Cruz Harbor. Not the most exciting paddle one can imagine but what makes it different from some is that it was in a torrential downpour. It was raining so hard going over the pass between San Jose and Santa Cruz that people were slowing down to around 40 mph instead of pushing 70 on the 50 mph speed limit curves. The air temp was about 58 and the wind was maybe 15 knots. I got to the harbor and parked and climbed into the back seat of my minivan to put on my dry suit over polartec 200 top and bottom. Then, below and on top, my hardsole neoprene bootees and my Tilley hat, well soaked down the day before with 303 Fabric Guard. These contortions achieved, I was girded for the wet and exited to the Harbor Masters' Office. I went into the harbor office to pay for launching and parking & they looked at me as tho' I came from Mars. I'd guess they probably didn't have another launch from the ramp all morning, perhaps all day Friday, except for the kayak nut. I was probably the only interruption in a quiet day of catching up on the paperwork. I carried the Cobra down the ramp and gently lowered her to the concrete to wait while I went back to the van for everything else. I came back and snapped in the seat and thigh straps, etc. and all the while the sky fell and there was a continual low roar of water on asphalt. Whenever my head would tip forward my vision would be obscured by a waterfall from my hat brim. As I was loading the boat it started slipping down the ramp from the algae on the cement (Low Tide.) As I finished it met the water and we launched as I sat. As I paddled out I was met on my left by waves of about a foot high at intervals of from about 8 feet to 6", about the most agitated wave action I've seen here, tho' not big. That changed as I paddled out to look at the mouth of the harbor. As I approached I could see that the waves were breaking across the mouth of the harbor and looked about 4 feet high as they foamed in. I've gone thru' surf that looked like that before. Out beyond it was bigger. The internet surf report for Santa Cruz, that morning, said BIG!, head and shoulders ++. It looked pretty wild and I thought, "well it looks easily survivable but not very relaxing and there sure doesn't seem to be anyone around to see if I _do_ get into trouble and use some of my brand new signal flares." (Thanks PWers, in my newbie ignorance I didn't even know we were supposed to carry them until I read it here and went looking for the rules. The only thing I was told at point of sale was "you have to have a PFD.") In the wisdom of age, I decided against excitement and turned to starboard to dally in the harbor looking at the bigger boats. (At 11' 3" they were _all_ bigger than me.) At the top of the harbor I came around a dock corner and found myself in the middle of a scattered flock of Mallards who didn't move off until my boat got about 6 feet away from individuals. Along the way I paddled in and out of all the dock areas eyeballing all the boats. My particular interest is the multihull sailboats, especially the cats. At one point I pulled in underneath the 60 foot O'Neal's Yachts Catamaran Sailboat and sat there for a minute or two in absolute calm mirrored water looking out at the rain dapples on the water. It was strange paddling under a boat whose bottom was 4-5 feet overhead. It's at least 15 feet wide between the hulls. Wish I had the bucks to operate that big beauty, let alone own her! During the course of the paddle I saw a total of 3 people in the area, all working under cover/in cabin on their boats and giving me a look of unbelief as I paddled by in water almost as thick above as below. Since I was within 12 feet of them I gave them a cheery good morning and a wave, but nobody replied to the idiot "apparition in the rain." All in all the mornings paddle was an unexciting trip but nevertheless I'm glad I did it. Paddling in the heavy rain was a very introspective and mind calming, totally relaxing experience. Totally alone in a normally busy place, something like being a cop checking for burglars in a shopping center at 3 AM or the middle of New York city at noon the day after the Atom bomb. No looking out for harbor traffic that might run me down. Just paddling and looking and being dry and toasty warm as the buckets came down. Sitting looking at the rain from the "cave of the O'Neil cat" was such pleasingly strange sensation that that, alone, made the trip worthwhile. When I had pulled in, the parking lot was so totally empty that I had pulled in next to an SUV right next to the ramp. As I was putting my gear back in my van who but the Harbor Master offered to help me put the boat on my roof, as he was about to enter his vehicle. Such service for a rainfool! :-) Happy bytes, ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Flory, San Jose, CA. daflory_at_pacbell.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Speak softly and study Aikido, then you won't need a big stick. ©1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sat Nov 20 1999 - 19:25:34 PST
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