Surfski Knowledge Base

Saturday morning….early
Larry Goolsby
04/23/05 #209

Dear Don, Dean, Mike and whoever else…..First I want to apologize
for not being at the 2 PM Saturday paddle. Shaun and I had great
intentions on paddling with you guys but we ran out of gas. My day
started with a 6:30 AM call from Shaun (bastard needs to stay up
later) wanting to know if I was awake yet. I said of course I was
because I had to wake up to answer the phone (duh). Anyway, he said
the bay was flat as glass and wanted me to grab the double Fenn and
meet him at Fairhaven for an early morning paddle. The plan was to
go out to Eliza Island, have a cup of coffee, head back to Fairhaven
for lunch and then join up with you at 2 PM. Piece-o-cake.
Since my wife was out of town (Las Vegas, don't ask me why), it was
my job to take the dog for a walk or the dog would take herself for
a walk. When I left the house I noticed that the wind was blowing
about 10 - 15 out of the northwest. So on my way to Fairhaven, I had
to stop and walk the dog because she will not take a dump anywhere
near our yard (don't ask me why). Sure enough, when I got to
Fairhaven at 8 AM, it was pretty calm and serene looking. We took
off for Eliza confident that we would be back in about 2 hours. When
we got near Hale passage (Hell's half acre)we encountered that
northwest wind and the sound end of Lummi/Hale passage started to
get a bit rough. Hale passage is a great channel for wind so the
waves were building up and hitting our beam. We thought we had it
beat but somehow one erant wave knocked us off our ski and into the
warm waters of Puget Sound just before we rounded the safety of
Eliza island (20 more strokes and we would have made it). No problem
remounting and we circled around the point on Eliza and beached in
front of Shaun's cabin to be greeted by his lovely wife and some
coffee.
The trip back home became even more interesting than the trip out
with the wind blowing even harder and the waves were square with our
beam if we tried to aim straight for Fairhaven. After the first
refreshing swim on the return trip, we chose to head due north for a
distance and then tack southeast in order to eventually get back to
the cars. As we turned and headed southeast, the waves were building
even bigger and when we tried to aim for the mainland, we went
swimming one more time. We were both quite happy to be out there
since this was giving us some necessary training that we had both
obviously needed. We headed north one more time for about 2 miles
and this time we managed to turn and head due east for Fairhaven
without dumping it once again. However, this tortuous course meant
that we had paddled 17-18 miles instead of the intended 14.
We wussed out because we pictured you fresh young alpha males
paddling like there was no tomorrow and we were spent. I'm sure it
would have been a lot of fun. However, we did gain a bitch-load of
confidence in paddling the double in rough conditions and were
pretty proud of the fact that we didn't dump when the conditions got
even bigger near Fairhaven.
Hope we get another opportunity to paddle together again soon.
Larry G.

lbussinger50 <lbussinger@…>
04/24/05 #210

Larry,
If you thought that was rough stuff, then you'll need to learn how to
pray before Bowen Island.
LB

Larry Goolsby
04/24/05 #214

I doubt that Shaun and I are ready to take the double to the Bowen
island race but we are keeping that option open. The Lake Whatcom
Classic was a fun race for us because we were either with or against
the waves and the long hull catches every possible ride. However,
this double Fenn is very twitchy compared to a single and the
crossing from Eliza did test our balance over and over. We did gain
a lot of skill on that outing and with a few more days like that,
maybe the Bowen island race might be in our sights. Paddling a
double in rough conditions is much more challenging than doing it in
a single and further gain is going to require some saddle time.
Since the boat is more challenging, it is also more fun when it all
comes together. Both paddlers have to be in sequence at all times or
the boat won't reach it's potential. If the rocking of the boat
causes one of the paddlers to change the stroke, then everything is
out of sequence and all balance is lost. I think its best for us to
show up at a race with both the double and our Hukis and make the
decision before laying down our entry fee.
Larry G