Paddled all 4 days of the weekend myself. Friday, I poked around the lake near my house & got in some roll practice. Saturday, a group of us paddled from Groton, CT to Fishers Island, NY & back. Sunday, I went canoeing on a local river. Monday was the big paddle --- back to Groton to circumnavigate Fishers Island. It's a 15.7 nautical mile paddle that includes paddling through a major tidal race. Myself, my girlfriend Judith, and our friend John were the only ones who showed, so we were it. I had timed the paddle such that we would arrive at the race a half hour before slack & be able to ride the current out for a bit before it started running in. By the time we would get to the east end of the island, the tide would be at our backs the rest of the way back to the launch. Fishers Island Sound has substantial currents, reefs, and overfalls, so it would be a fun day. Which brings me to the accuracy of weather forecasting...........how is it with all this "cutting edge technology", that the various weather services seem to be getting worse at predicting the weather? The marine forecast called for west winds 5 - 10 knots with seas 2 feet or less, turning onshore locally in the afternoon. What we got was southwest 12 - 15 knots with frequent higher gusts. So, we got to the race right at slack, rather than before it. We pulled out on the beach on the south side of Race Point, and had lunch. We continued on down the 6 mile length of the island on the ocean side, and hugged the shore to take advantage of the eddy currents. We had nearly flat seas when we were not in an overfall or near a headland, and the wind was now at our backs. We made decent time to the east end of the island, and ran the overfall back into the sound. We stopped for a break just inside, and figured out a landmark to use to hold our ferry angle back to the launch. We had the current at our backs, and the wind in our face, and with the right ferry angle, we'd hit Ram Island, just offshore of Mystic, CT with no effort. We settled on an antenna tower as a visual range, and set out. We ferried right to Ram Island, and back into Groton in very good time considering the headwind. We stopped right off the launch and did a bunch of rolls to cool off, and then headed in. It was a good early season long paddle. Wayne Wayne Smith wsmith16_at_charter.net Check out my website! http://webpages.charter.net/wsmith16/home.html *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Jun 01 2005 - 11:44:20 PDT
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