Saturday morning a group of us from Western Sea Kayakers met at MBK Moss Landing to do the slough. We got away about 09:30 on a cloudy grey morning. The wind was calm all the way in to Kirby Park. I was the only SOT kayak in the group, and I was glad I had just taken a forward stroke clinic the prvious Sunday, 'cause without the improvement it made in my paddling I could never have kept up with the group. There were a couple of people in the group who were first time ever paddlers, but everyone else had boats at least 16 feet long and most were 17 or 18. My short (11 ft. 3 in.) fat (31 in.) SOT was going about as fast as I can paddle to keep up at the tail end of the group. If I went full out I could just begin to overtake the group at their regular group speed. Nevertheless it was a fun day. We went thru' the Rubis Creek channel looping backwards, i.e. from the east to the west and retracing our steps past where we went in and then on to Kirby Park. During the Rubis Channel side trip we saw a lot of the little crabs who live in and make the little potholes in the mud banks. We also saw dozens of the purple patterned Jellies in sizes from about a foot up 18 inches. Remnants of many lay on the channel banks being lunched on by the crabs. White Herons were there by the dozens as well as pelicans roosting on the south bank near the sea end of the slough. A couple of weeks ago I didn't see a single pelican. When we pulled into Kirby Park it was as full as I've ever seen it. I usually paddle here on weekdays. There were about 8 vehicles parked there, a couple of kayaks and a boat or two had launched from that end. Lunch break and chatting about kayaking took about an hour and then we put in for the trip back, which was pretty easy. We didn't run into any real wind until the last 15 minutes of the paddle and then there were no whitecaps so it was probably less than 10 mph. Our first time paddlers did a really fine job, keeping up with the group all the way with no signs of distress, i.e. they were chattering away all the trip with big smiles on their faces. The trip was a little faster than I usually go as I like to trickle along close the side of the slough, wherever the seals/sea lions aren't pulled out, and look at the little stuff I'm passing. It was a terrific workout tho' and the company and conversations as we paddled were very enjoyable. Think I'll be much more comfortable with this group when I get my new boat which is 15 ft x 28 inches, and goes considerably faster/easier than my current 'yak. Fair winds and happy bytes, -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Flory, San Jose, CA. daflory_at_pacbell.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Speak softly and study Aikido, then you won't need a big stick. ©2000 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:15 PDT