Social Paddle

Jane, Teresa, and I opted to practice our skills while joining the Aqua Adventures Thursday Social Paddle. Ages ago, all three of us did this paddle regularly.

I was a nice night and all three of us had a good time playing with our skills. Afterwards,we review the DVD video of the assement videos. Jane is head up north, so Jeff should be able to provide some comments upon his return.

Video Part 2

Here are some things I saw. More vertical with the paddle on some of the draws. Attack the Draw on the Move more. Push the Sculling for Support past the 3 edge. High Brace, get over dummy!

Chris

Assessment Video - Updated Part 3

Figure of Eight


Low Brace


High Brace

Assessment Video - Updated Part 2

Sculling for Support


Hanging Draw


Low Brace Turn

Assessment Video - Updated

Jane and I decided to flim ourselves practicing some of the parts of the BCU 3 Star assessment. Here are the clips from my attempts.


Sculling Draw


Bow Rudder


Draw on Move

Bay To Bay Race Results

I did my first kayak race, the YMCA Bay to Bay. I swore I would never race in my kayak, but it was for a good cause. It was a 5 mile course from Shelter Island to Tideland Park on Coronado. Basically the same route as the Night Herons (Which I am npw a hat wearing member!). High tide was about 10 minutes after our start time, so we would be fighting that during the race. We also a fair amount of wind from the south. Once the starting line cleared out, I decided to drop my rudder. It really helped on a day like this.

Held a good pace through most of the course. I finished 6th in my class out of 20(?). My time was 1:02. I was hoping for under an hour, but with the wind and tide, I'll take it. Greg won the race without a problem. No fair racing against him (and his kelvar Epic).

Anita and the twins came down to watch, but got there just after I finished. Anita was bummed. Next year.

Sunday Morning Fog

Early Sunday morning, 7 paddlers met on the shores of La Jolla Cove for a 7am launch. Jane H, Carol G. , Mike B. , Robert J., Jon B, Inez, and myself set out under foggy skies up towards Torrey Pines State Beach. The ocean was very calm. In fact during my launch the biggest wave only hit my belly button. Once we were all safely at sea, we turned northward, and paddled at a leisurely pace. This turned out to be good for me, since about 2 miles into the paddle my left hip began to ache. I have an old cycling injury, and I think it was just out of whack that day. Various folks practiced some rolls or reentries along the way. I opted not to since I was concerned about the ache. The only complaint was that the day was quite humid. I felt like I was back in Atlanta. I was glad I did not wear a wetsuit!

When we reach the end of the bluffs, we decided to head back to the 'Shores, since the wind was picking up slightly. For the most part the ocean was fairly calm, a few light swells. I never got comfortable in my boat on this trip, so I tended to be a bit edgy. I tried strectching my leg, shifting my weight to the other cheek, but nothing really helped. I almost thought about hopping out and working it out in the water, but we were close enough to home, as I decided not to.

As we approached the boat ramp, the sun started to peek through. We quequed up to land, and after some of the tour groups were out of the way, we began landing. I went in with out too much trouble until I tried to steer a bit on the wave and over I went. I paused for a moment underwater. Set up and BAM! Rolled right up! And this was not even with an extended paddle! Someone who was nearby, saw the roll and commented on how nice it looked. Even though I screwed the landing, nailing the roll in the surf was freakin' awesome. I really made me forget a lot about the hip ache. I opted to skip the coffee, since I was hoping to get a haircut (which did not end up happening)

All in all, a nice paddle with some fine folks!

Caught in the shorts...

Thursday night's paddle turned into an adventure of sorts. I was going to paddle with the GNNs, but soon learned that I forgot my paddle shorts. D'oh! I was a bit early, so I headed over to Aqua-Adventures to see if they had anything I could buy. I needed a second pair, so I wasn't too depressed about forgetting them. Unfortunately, they did not have anything in my size. Now I was very bummed.

Mike B. was there and kindly let me borrow a spare pair he had. I returned the favor by hanging around and doing the Thursday night social paddle. I haven't done one of these in a while. Since I got my own boat, the appeal of cheap boat rental was no longer there. Also, since I usually can only paddle one night during the week, I tend to try to do the Night Herons for more of a work out.

I actually put in quite early and headed over to near the lifeguard station and started working through a variety of skills. Backward circles, draw on the move, hanging draws, sculling draws, sculling for support, etc. The water was very smooth, so the boat wake was easy to see for the backward paddling, so I could gauge my circles and figure 8's.

About 6'ish, the paddlers left the docks at Aqua and joined up with Mike, Dale ?, and myself as the "guides". There were about 20 boats in all. Mike ran sweep, while I held the point. I used all this time to keep working on my strokes. Paddling on edge, more draws, some bow rudders at the stopping points.

The route was the typical trip to the penguins, then we looped through Bahia Cove then back to the shop. Interesting note, the paddle wheeler actually came into Quivra Basin at the start of the paddle. I looked at Mike and ask when did they start that? He replied, he had never seen it before.

All of those strokes keep feeling better-Thanks Jeff! Although one draw on the move blew chunks, but I did a quick recovery and avoided the buoy. :) During forward paddling I tried to really focus on rotataion and transferring energy from the legs and torso.

I had a lot of fun as a guide. Afterwards, Mike and I enjoyed a nice cool Fosters and talked about Thursday paddles and how to make them more fun. The evening certainly turned out to be a great time on the water.