[Paddlewise] wind

  Had an unintentional adventure Saturday off Tybee Island GA.  Went out with
a friend to paddle over to Little Tybee.  A distance of about a mile.  It was
windy that day but it frequently is in that area.  Unfortunately my brain was
left back at home or something because I failed to notice that the wind, which
is almost always an onshore breeze, was an offshore wind.
  As soon as we got out of the calming effect of the trees we were blasted by
25/30 knot winds.  I was in my Pintail and my friend was in a borrowed Avocet.
She owns an Avocet but this one was not foamed out to fit her.  Once I
realized just how strong the wind was I told her we needed to turn around and
shouldn't go any further down wind.  We were ten yards apart. She replied that
she could not hear me.  I don't have a soft voice. I spoke a lot louder. She
got the message and tried to turn around.  And tried. And tried. With some
difficulty I faced my boat into the wind and drifted near her while she tried
to turn.  She ended up drifting onto the beach of Little Tybee.  She managed
to horse her boat around into the wind with a lot of digging of the paddle
blade into the sand of the shallows.  Staying face into the wind was a bit of
a full time job.
  After about five minutes of no success on her part maintaining her heading
or position I finally woke up and clipped a tow line to her bow to help her
stay pointed into the wind.  I should have taken charge a lot sooner. We
started off back home.  It was only a mile but a fast outgoing tide, the wind,
and the tow were sucking me dry.  Just then the Cavalry arrived.  Two
instructors from Sea Kayak GA and a group of ACA instructors were returning
from their 4 star BCU training.  A nice guy in the group named Danny asked me
if I wanted to share the tow.  I hesitated out of stupid pride and he decided
for me.  Now that is leadership material!
  We linked up to conquer the wind and together got across the open water to
the calm of the shielding trees.  Danny was a real inspiration.  He made me
paddle harder than I have ever paddled in my life.  During the tow one  of the
other BCU students joked that if we didn't make land fall in the next 12 hours
we could camp on little Tybee.  I half believed him.
  The whole thing was a wonderful learning experience with no one getting
hurt.  Its very healthy to be humbled and all to easy to get complacent in
your own "backyard".  Its also an interesting experience being a live training
aid for a group of very skilled, very strong paddlers.  Dale Williams gave my
friend and I  a really great After Action Review and explained what we could
have done to trim our kayaks so that they would have stayed nose into the
wind.  He explained our mistakes and praised us for being well dress for
conditions.  A natural instructor.

Jim et al
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