A contrast in paddling conditions. Three weeks ago (I hadn't paddled since), a bit more than an hour's drive at 80 mph, grey skies, about 20 C, open sea, visibility about 4 miles, slight swell and a SOT as we paddled out of Oxnard, mid summer. This Sunday, mirror flat sea, visibility 100+ miles, temperature 15 C maximum on a winter's day in New Zealand. I'd wiped the ice off the wind-screen before leaving home in the morning and three of us headed over to the harbour, about 20 minutes away at less than 50 kph. We launched and paddled over to Quail Island, Heather, first time in her new (demo/used) Puffin, James paddling my Seaward as his Cape Charles isn't finished yet, and myself in the Mist. I took them into the caves and round to the wrecks before we sat in the sun for lunch. A group of 4 in Spectrums came past - "Wooden kayaks! Last time I saw one was a red one a few years ago in Abel Tasman." said one of the paddlers. Must have been me! We carried on round the island after lunch, scraping through the channel as the tide was falling. Once out on the crossing, the wind was rising kicking up a little chop or as much as you get with about 7 knots of wind against the tide! We headed into it a bit so that we might get a little run back to our launch point. At least one run on the ripples and it looked like James got the same - if you can't get the Seaward to run on a wave you'll never get anything to surf. Heather jogged along and a few words of advise hopefully helped her paddling style. Well over a dozen kayaks spotted, out on a perfect winter's day. Other contrasts - few birds other than a couple of reef herons, a lot of black backed gulls and a few cormorants. Also clarity of the atmosphere and the way sound carried from so far away. Alex . . Alex (Sandy) Ferguson Chemistry Department University of Canterbury New Zealand *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Aug 10 2000 - 22:21:11 PDT
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