The sea was lumpy today, my friends, like gramma's gravy late Thanksgiving evening! Although my sun drenched house was only 8 miles away, I paddled out the jetty against a chill wind and increasing chop. I figured I shouldn't complain; I'd been hoping for these kind of conditions on most of my hot, flat summer paddles, but even I like the sun to pop out on occasion. Today the sky was like blue gray cottage cheese, large curd. As I exited the harbor, I was greeted by the usual suspects: assorted pleasure craft, the dredger barge heading back for seconds, even a paraglider head down from the north. There were also a couple salvage boats out around the channel buoy trying to raise the 60 footer that crashed against the harbor last week. As I paddled out to get a closer look, I enjoyed the nice, confused swells breaking over my deck. I was using my old, nylon bladed paddle, it's aluminum shaft as slippery as a slice of jellied cranberry sauce on a butter knife. The salvage guys didn't look like a happy group and it didn't look like anything would be coming up anytime soon, so I headed south. I decided to paddle backwards to Big Arch rock just for the heck of it. It was quite a challenge with the choppy water and I only made it to Little Arch rock before I tired and gave up. Turns out I don't have good rotation paddling backwards either! I spent about half an hour getting drenched behind BAR, listening to some good sized sets crash against the rocks--perhaps winter isn't too far off! As I paddled home the salvage boats looked like fishermen resigned to loosing their favorite lure in the weeds. They seemed to be trying to crank something up, but all of a sudden a giant air pillow shot to the surface. Rather disappointing, kind of like Aunt Fran's Tofu Mincemeat pie. Mark Sanders www.sandmarks.net *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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