You know it's windy when: 1. The whistle on your pfd whistles, without you putting it in your mouth. 2. When surfing a wave you do a low brace and the wind driven splash comes over your shoulder and passes you. 3. You purse your lips and turn your head sideways to make whistling sounds - without breathing. The forecast for today was for temperatures in the 50s with a northwest wind of 20 to 35 miles per hour. Seems like a nice day to paddle. We met at a Mike C's house on the Annisquam river in Gloucester MA and headed out to Wingaershaek beach to see what the wind/waves were doing as they hit the sandbars. We chose this location because a NW wind would force you onto shore. I'm not a fan of padding with a brisk offshore wind. We ended up staying in the mouth of the river taking multiple runs from the end of the sand bar back to into the river. High points would be burying the nose of my 21'6" boat up to the footwells. Having my knees/hips under water when I slowed drastically on a wave and it flooded the cockpit of my sit on top. We were playing with 4+ foot sea swell with wind driven waves coming at a 45 degree angle to the larger swells. We had an outbound tide, which was flowing almost directly into the oncoming wind, which made for nice stacking up of waves. Mike C had his GPS - he saw speeds up to 9 knots - with a 3 knot opposing current. This was the first time I wished I had a 9" surfing rudder instead of the 7" rudder currently on my boat. I broached a few times, and had to make a few quick braces to avoid going for a swim. Mike got to try his rough water remount, after dumping mid channel. Bill wasn't as bold, on his first run he was tentative about turning around and ended up in some 6 to 7 foot steep waves. He ended up paddling upwind, across the channel, with both feet in the water, straddling the hull for extra stability. After the first run he spent time closer to shore, and somewhat sheltered by the large rocks on Wingaeshaek beach. All in all another fabulous day. I've had a lot of good days this season.... Kirk -- Kirk Olsen *************************************************************************** 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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