[Paddlewise] Trip Report - Southern CA

While all of you East Coast types are still waiting for your water to
become liquid again, those of us in Southern California have been out
paddling.

Today looked like it would be a great day on the water. The NOAA weather
forecast was for light winds building to 10 - 15 in the afternoon, 2 -
3' foot seas, water temps around 52 - 55 and air temps of 76. In short
another California day that was supposed to be the same as yesterday and
the same as tomorrow. Since our weather forecasters don't really have to
be all that smart to predict our weather, we were really surprised by
the conditions we found at our launch point. 

The following is a report for all of you in the cold weather areas so
you can experience some paddling vicariously. In spite of the strong
off-shore winds, we all had a blast.

Trip Report:  Forward Stroke Clinic - Channel Islands Style

I was really looking forward to taking the Forward Stroke Clinic that
Aqua Adventures was putting on for CKF members today, but unfortunately
the notice was too short and I had already made plans to paddle with
several other people. Instead, we had our own forward stroke clinic
courtesy of King Neptune today.
Ten of us met at Channel Islands Harbor this morning to paddle to Oil
Platform Gina. The weather forecast called for on-shore winds of 10
knots or less, swell of 2'-4' and air temps of around 76. It should have
been a beautiful day to paddle.

The actual weather when we arrived at the launch site was OFF-Shore
winds of at least 10 - 15 knots while we were on the beach inside the
harbor and we could see both Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands very
clearly. That is not a good sign as it meant the off-shore winds were
holding back the marine layer.
At this point, one of the 10 opted to do a harbor paddle and the rest of
us decided to change to a coastal paddle. We launched and had an
effortless paddle to The Pond with that 15 knot wind to our backs. We
turned West at the end of the jetty and another paddler decided to go
back to the harbor. We were now 8 brave souls paddling beam to an even
stronger wind of 15 - 20 knots with gusts of about 25.
By the time we reached the end of the breakwater (not that it would give
us any relief from the wind since it was in our lee, another paddler
decided to stay in the harbor and turned around. Now we were seven.

We slogged on with winds hitting sustained speeds of about 25 knots on
occasion and a steady 15 - 20. It was slow going and we were getting
very wet from the whitecaps that were breaking on us and around us.
Every once in a while it would be necessary to brace to keep from being
blown over sideways, feathered paddles of less than 90 degrees would
occasionally fly up. Most of us had paddle leashes attached and at least
knew to let go of the end of the paddle flying up and letting it flip
over while being held in our down wind hand. It was also interesting to
watch most of us using shorter paddles in a very low angle stroke
instead of our normal high angle vertical strokes because of how strong
the wind was. Our group of seven broke down into smaller groups of two
while George paddled on ahead of the rest of us scouting things out. I
think his boat has only two speeds - on or off.

Rescues would have been difficult in the wind today. Turning the boats
was difficult. Those with rudders and extremely long boats were finding
that their boats were lee cocking and required full continuous rudder to
stay straight. Those of us with skegs were continuously adjusting them
and knee hanging at the same time to keep going straight. The longer
ruddered boats found that it was almost impossible to turn into the
wind. From a stop and doing leaned reverse extended sweeps, they still
could not turn. Those boats needed to be moving to turn. Patrick, in his
CD Extreme, and I, in my CD Gulfstream, noticed we were on the wrong
side of each other. His boat kept wanting to lee cock into my boat, and
my boat kept wanting to weather cock into his. We were deliberately
staying close to each other so we could talk over the wind and also be
in position if a rescue was necessary without a lot of maneuvering.

The shorter more rockered British style boats were able to turn, but it
was taking some heavy leaning and extended paddle strokes. We paddled to
the power station almost 4 NM away and then took a short break and
turned back. Of course the wind shifted slightly and we still had a beam
wind slightly off the port bow to paddle against. It was hard work, but
we finally landed back at Kiddie Beach.
George called on the radio to find where we were because he again left
us in his wake on the return. Maybe he has an unseen motor in that boat.
John P and Peter O tried to give him a run for his money, but just as
they were catching up to him, George sped up again. Patrick and I stayed
together and chatted to keep our minds off of the effort we were having
to exert. When we landed, the balls of my feet hurt from all of the
pushing I was doing against the foot pegs. Patrick said I was lucky,
only one of his feet hurt because he had to keep the other foot off so
that he could use his other foot to push the rudder.

The award for the most amazing performance in a sea kayak goes to Lee
today. Lee has been paddling for much less than a year and was in his
brand new WS Tempest 170. He handled everything like he's been paddling
for years. Of course most of us Tilley Hat wearers (Inside joke -
meaning over 50 crowd) were amazed to see him paddle today in the wind
after paddling 18 NM yesterday in Orange County with Duane Strosaker and
Dublin Dave.

How strong was the wind, you may ask. It was strong enough that my deck
lines were whistling loudly. I've never heard that happen before and it
was a little annoying. However, the alternative of paddling without deck
lines is not an option in my opinion.

The grand finale of today's trip was when we walked over to Daddy-O's
for our usual tri-tip sandwiches for lunch and we found it closed. The
sign on the door said "GONE SAILING". So it was burritos from Peppy's
but we still walked across the street and ate sitting in Daddy-O's
chairs.


Steve Holtzman
Southern CA
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