Friday-Shelter Island to Anthony's

Decided to take advantage of my day off and hit the water. I am thinking about the Bay to Bay race, so I decided to do part of the course. I had to pick up the twins from preshool, so I could not do the full course. The bay was quiet, the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) was steaming (nuking?) back to North Island as I was unloading. during the transit to Anthony's two cruisers also came in. I did not see their hull numbers. Made the dock at Anthony's in about 50 minutes. It felt good. After a nice cup of coffee, I headed back to Shelter Island. I fell into a really nice rhythm. Along the way a seal pop its head up an took a good look at me before diving back down. I guess he was saying thanks for grabing some floating trash along the way. There was a little head wind and the tide was rolling in. I held about the same time. The whole paddle felt very comfortable.

Flat Water Perfection Class

I finally got back on the water tonight. Between the weather, the trip to San Jose, and life in general, it seems to have been forever since I have been paddling.

On Thursday nights I am taking a kayaking skills class from Jeff Laxier at Liquid Fusion Kayaks. Teresa also joined us at the South Shores Boat Ramp on Mission Bay. Jeff had us working on keeping our speed up during turning. In typical Jeff fashion, we were going backwards. Trying to remember to push with the opposite foot from the paddle side as quite a challenge. If you can get a rhythm going, it will work.

We also worked on traditional sweeps and edging turns. I am starting to feel a nice balance with the boat. We worked on pushing with the power foot to aid in the torse rotation. We wrapped up with some bow rudder work. Being able to link the bow rudder into a foward stroke.

I have a lot of good skills to keep refining, I hope to do some paddling tomorrow.

Southwest Kayak Symposium

Had a great time at the Southwest Kayak Symposium. The weather forecast was threating, but in typical San Diego nature, nothing much came of it. There was a little wind midday that would tend to blow us about a bit. I took two classes with Shawna Franklin and Leon Somme. They are great instructors. The symposium was nice, saw some old friends and meet a few new faces from the CFK list.