[Paddlewise] Twofer

Here's my paddle report from yesterday, I though it might originate some 
discussion on towing divers and paddle indexing!

Sunday:
It's surprising I went out for two paddles today, considering
I was ready to give up the sport on my first outing!


Seems it's been a rough 2011 for me, at least starting with the
symposium. But I'm over my cold and trying to get a bit active again, so
I thought I'd join John C.'s Crescent Bay rock garden paddle this
morning. There was an 8am and a 9am starting time, actually, and I even
chose the early one, because I planned to join K&B on an afternooner!

For those of you that have never been there, Crescent bay has a lovely,
steep hill to navigate with your boat and gear, so you get a workout
even before you get on the water. For those of us with a firmer grip on
gravity, it's not much fun! The shore break wasn't real big, but it can
give you a bit of trouble, but I didn't really give it any thought. I
launched into one of the bigger waves thinking it would be a nice way to
warm up and although I got through OK, my throw bag got dislodged from
my bungees! As I tried to stow it, another wave came sending me upside
down and then rudely back to the beach high and dry on the sand.

I had to get out to point the boat in the right direction, but I was a
little too far down the beach this time! Before I had time to put on my
skirt, a wave sucked me out sideways right into the next wave and I was
window shaded back to shore! Now me and my boat were filled with water
and mud and I was already tired before the paddle started!

The third time was the charm and soon John, Jack and Lenora and I were
checking out the reef on a high tide. The water was infested with scuba
divers everywhere you looked, so you had to watch where you paddled! Out
past the point, I saw a couple divers who seemed to be trying to
communicate with some other friends! They were waving, but when they
started blowing a whistle, John and I thought we better go check them
out! Turns out they were both in trouble, too tired to make it back to
shore and very happy we were there. We had each one grab our back
toggles and started towing them back to shore, but I wasn't sure I was
making any progress! Perhaps we were in a bit of a rip, but I think it
was mostly a case of these guys being just so loaded with gear, they
were like a giant sea anchor! We told them to try and kick, but they
both seemed too tired to help much. Getting them up on our boats with
all that gear seemed to be more trouble than it was worth!

John was starting to make headway, but I called to Jack to come give me
some help and we had the guy hold on to both our sterns. Even with two
of us it was an evil slog! He lost hold of my toggle, but Jack was able
to get him close enough into the break to walk to shore. They both spent
time on their hands and knees in the sand trying to recover from their
ordeal. John and I were both surprised at how unsure we were that they
needed help! I only heard one short whistle and I wasn't sure that
wasn't some way divers communicate with other divers on the water!
Seeing some divers later on the shore, I was amazed at how much gear the
wear now, all of it being the kind of stuff to cause drag for someone
having to tow them in. So it's time for the CKF crowd to come up with a
towing solution for this situation. We were lucky it wasn't too far of a
tow, or we'd have had to jettison some of their gear, or at least have
another person try to carry it separately!

Finally it was time to have some fun in the rocks and waves, but I was
having another problem!!! I had just repaired my Patrick Martin
Frankenstein rock garden paddle except for one detail! He had a long
piece of foam taped along the shaft to serve as an index. I'd taken it
off and planned to epoxy on a new one, but thought I could get through
the day without it! Now the shaft was twisting through my hands and
every brace was an adventure! I rode over a reef and went to brace in
the white water on the other side and over I went. As soon as I got up,
I got broached all the way into a rocky reef fighting crappy braces at
every turn! This paddle has very heavy blades and they tend to turn to a
strange angle if you don't keep a death grip on the shaft and it didn't
take too long before I decided I didn't want to brave some of the more
challenging water with it! Still, others were having fun, Lenora had
made a nice combat roll in some nasty stuff and we'd been joined by
Blake and Louai. I left them heading down the coast so I could start my
next paddle on the day.

I had time to get home and clean some of the sand out of my gear before
my next launch. I decided I'd had enough of the Sapsucker on the day, so
for the first time I paddled both the Sap and the Lollygagger on the
same day! At the Secret Beach, Barb and Ken and I launched into the
teeth of a nasty head wind and battled the chop heading into the harbor.
Outside, things had picked up since my earlier paddle and we were
definitely into conditions Barb doesn't enjoy too much! We decided to
settle for a pass around the buoy where the call of the seals greeted
our arrival. I decided I'd follow K&B however far they wanted to paddle,
but after a pass by Big Corona, Barb had had enough and we headed back.
The wind was our friend on the way back and I caught a couple nice
swells to propel me down the jetty. We were happy to find an empty dock
back at the SB and celebrated at a local coffee shack.

Mark















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