7/20/08 Well we waited till the last minute hoping he'd show up, but Wayne was a no show to his namesake event; we decided to have fun without him! Everyone got an early start today, unable to sleep most likely with the thought of TastyQ'd Hot Dogs just waiting for all this foolish paddling to be over. When I got to the Coast Guard beach, Henry and Kathy were already out on the water getting in some early practice. Soon Duane joined me as well as Pete, George and Dave O'Connor. Pete, too, went out to practice a while and left the rest of us to chat and wait for our 8:30 start time. H&K got done and stored their wet gear and soon Carol Fallon showed up to make us eight on the water. If anything we got off a minute or two early. The surf forecast for the day was a bit of a concern: waves 4-6 with 16-18 sec periods--that's a lot of water! Still I hoped to convince someone to land with me at Crystal Cove for bragging rights. The paddle down was a breeze except maybe for Duane who was in his Mini Benny so had to work a bit harder and also spent most of his time close into shore. At CC, I asked for volunteers and Duane, George and Pete decided to join me on the shore. With the big ol' rollers passing under us, we knew we'd better time things right. Duane went on in first to video any possible carnage. Hoping to help Pete judge a good time better from the beach, I went in next. We already had a small spectator group watching us from the shore. Rather impatient, I don't always wait for the biggest lull and picked a medium sized wave to ride to shore. I soon had my bow planted and seemed to be watching the earth from a new altitude. I came down on my side and missed my attempt at a roll and mostly washed up on shore! George and Pete both showed how it's supposed to be done and we rested and chatted with our audience for a while before heading out. Getting Pete out took a try or two and once I got him started, I was shouting at him through his gauntlet of waves to keep him moving. I went next and wasn't having much trouble, but a wall of whitewash was heading my way and in my attempt to get turned straight to meet it I felt my paddle blade break in half! George launched to see if anyone had a spare paddle with them, but we don't usually worry about such trivia and I was on my own. Duane said he'd go get his car and picked me up, because it didn't seem like I'd make it out with a jagged half paddle. But I waited for a lull, stayed straight in the soup and luckily made it out. We were all waiting offshore sure Duane would show us all how it's done, so we weren't ready for what we saw. It seemed like about three big sets came in at once and despite waiting out the big ones, Duane still had some big water to deal with. The Mini Benny was getting spun around in the swirling water and Duane was getting hammered. It didn't help that he was trying to keep his video camera pointed in the right direction after each hit. Finally the surf calmed down a bit and Duane fought his way out to sea. After all that excitement, the paddle home was anticlimactic, but we were all ready for some tasty dogs when we hit the sand. As everyone loaded up, Win and Carol drove up after their harbor practice to join us for lunch. We had a great lunch sitting by the water talking about all the fun on the day. For all the fun, I have a broken paddle (#6) and a boat with a deviated septum, but what the hey. It was a great day on the water and off and I hope to do it again soon! 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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