[Paddlewise] Day #42, Pig Town Jig

5/14/08

Things seemed to conspire to sabotage our Crystal Cove Hot Dog Paddle this
evening, but the desire for tasty, albeit mysterious meat products overcame
all obstacles!

It started when I came across Ken and Barb on the road heading to the beach
and realized I had forgotten the pan to cook the weenies. So unless we
wanted to cook them over an open fire with our fingers, I had to head back.
I had gotten an early start, so it wasn't too bad a set back. The Secret
Beach was almost deserted which made launching pretty easy and I soon glided
to a stop at the Coast Guard beach to join the rest of the group. Ken and
Barb were there with Dave O'Connor and Chuck Freedman, with only one
snag--Dave and Chuck had both forgotten their paddles! Only Barb had brought
a backup paddle to loan to the unfortunate, so we hoped for Duane to arrive
to see if he had brought a spare. No such luck, but Chuck did have half a
Tooksook paddle in his car and so used it for the paddle!

We all set out a few minutes past 5pm, but Duane wanting more of a workout
decided to do a lap around the island and to catch up with us on the beach.
We were a motley group paddling out, but Chuck with his half paddle kept up
fine. Outside the harbor, Ken and Dave went to check out an inflatable boat
seemed abandoned and floating in the kelp. I made a bee line for the Arch
and made a few passes through the playful water. After my last pass, I saw
the group heading on down with me quite a ways behind. It wasn't till we
were almost at CC that I noticed Ken was no where to be seen. Even now that
Duane had caught up with us, there was no sight of Ken! Turns out he'd
decided to hang out at the missing dingy to call it in to the Harbor Patrol.
His good deed took a bit longer than expected because he couldn't hear the
HP over the radio through the closed ear vents on his new Gath helmet!! He
arrived with all of us but Barb on the shore and sent her in on the tails of
a large set, which she handled with ease.

We set up hot dog camp and I brought out my surprise for the night. In my
back hatch(thank heaven for QCC hatches), I had the world's second cheapest
guitar. Second cheapest only because I'd just put new strings on it. I
figured I had a captive audience, I might as well abuse them with a song or
two. Ken got the hot dogs cooking and Chuck treated me to an overpriced
beer. Duane and Barb both played some licks on the guitar and we got down to
serious dog munching. After dessert of tasty brownies, I once again realized
I'm not ready for an audience without a few margaritas in me, as I butchered
my version of "Four Wet Pigs", which seemed so appropriate for this paddle.
Perhaps I did a bit better with my two other songs, but Barb made the guitar
sound beautiful as she and Ken tried to finish a duet. But the sun was
getting low and Barb was itching for a surf launch, so we closed shop and
headed for the boats.

I got out quickly and despite the cool temps decided to do some punching in
the shore break. Barb got sent off the shore at an inopportune time and
while I shouted at her to keep going, the shore crowd told her to stop and
she got hit full on by a goodly sized wave and sent back surfing to shore! I
missed it, but I heard there was quite a bit of carnage involved, but soon
she was back out and launching over another big one. Paddles being scarce on
this trip, Dave was force to launch with a GP and seemed to be stuck in
neutral in some of the shore break even while his paddle seemed revved into
high gear! He made it out, but it didn't help bolster his opinion of
traditional paddles.

Soon we were all headed home, paddling beneath a beautiful sunset. Despite
our set backs, we managed to down some tasty puppies and all return safely.
It started iffy, but turned out to be a great paddle, funny how that
happens. I left the group at the CG beach and returned to my Secret Spot.
With high tide, I was only about 15 feet from my car. I threw my paddles an
such in the back, but when I came back for my boat, it had decided to wander
down the harbor a bit. I managed to corral it a few docks down before it
made me take a swim. What a great day on the water!

Mark Sanders
www.sandmarks.net

#
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