One man's rush to jump on the kayaking bandwagon

I went out on my own today. The forecast was for sustained 15mph winds with gusts up to 30mph. This was just too much for Heath.

I put in on Falls Lake at the Creedmoore road boat ramp. It's actually not a bad place to put in. You can drive your car to within a couple of feet of the water. (I'm not sure if it's legal, but it's possible. Curbs are merely suggestions, right?)

I headed off into the wind. I made little progress and got a lot of strange looks from all the bass boat jockey's who were taking advantage of the abnormally warm winter weather. I up the inlet, past the marina, and towards the road that TomTom thinks still exists. (It doesn't. Unless your car can swim.)

I love paddling into the wind. It just makes you feel like you're flying across the water. Obviously, the downside is that faster you feel, the slower you're going. After three or so miles heading into the wind, I turned around.

The wind was now directly behind me. According to my GPS, I was moving around 3.5 kts without paddling at all. Before I knew it, I was back at the boat ramp.

I really needed to go out on the lake today. I felt like I needed to go, but I didn't feel like going. I went anyway, hoping that I'd feel better once I got out. On one hand, I'm glad I went, on the other it wasn't exactly fun.

We put in at a boat ramp we hadn't used before. Its located further west on the lake than Upper Barton Creek, our usual spot. I liked it much better. It has less boat traffic and much more room to launch. We can even drive the car to within feet of the water. There's no need to lug the loaded kayaks down slippery ramps and over rocks.

The water was even higher today than it was when we went out last week. It makes finding a place to beach and have lunch or answer the call of nature a little harder than usual.

Today was my second day out wearing my Mukluk's. While they are wonderful at keeping water out, they also excel at keeping water in. I'm going to have to find some way to keep my feet dry. No one wants to get stinkfoot.

Heath and I headed out to the lake today to take advantage of the strangely warm weather. While the air temperature was a very un-December 71, the water temperature was 48.

We packed lunch and hoped to find a nice sandy beach to get out and eat. The water level was much higher than usual and the beaches just weren't there. We wound up just eating in out boats.

Around 2:30, I got a text message from that evil bitch Nagios telling me that things were not going well at the datacenter. I didn't hear it, or else I would have stopped, but it was buried in my drywell inside of a drybox. It looks like I'm now in the market for a real GPS. The text message somehow interrupts my GPS software. Get a text message, no more track recording. That is unacceptable.

Today started off with a nice paddle and ended in a paniced run to the datacenter.

Heath decided it would be cool to get little Christmas trees for our kayaks. Ok, I'll admit it, it is kind of cool. All the boats were coming in for the Floatilla and we got a lot of comments. A few people even took our picture.

My kayak got its first war wound today. While we were coming back under the draw bridge, a boat came by and its wake spun the nose of my boat right into the barnacle covered concrete wall. Ironically, the boat that was significantly violating the no wake zone was a Coast Guard boat. The boat is fine. It just has a bit of a plastic 5 o'clock shadow now.

This morning's trip was an example of why maps are important. I got lost. Not too lost, but enough to be irritating. To make it worse, had I know who close I was to there I wanted to be, I would not have turned around when I did.

I wanted to paddle over to Masonborro island and go for a walk. I thought the sand bar was on the intercoastal side, but it obviously wasn't. Had I had a map, I would have know that I was fairly close to the cut-through. Instead, I turned around and headed back up the intercoastal against the current.

While it didn't go as planned, I still had a great time. Luckily I didn't have anyone else with me to share in my lack of poor planning.

I only had a couple of hours, but I just had to get in a quick paddle. I headed right into a 10-15kt wind and into the outgoing tide for the first 20 minutes or so. It wasn't easy, but it was a good workout. Since I was alone, I was able to keep the pace up for the entire trip. Even when the wind and current was going my way, I kept paddling.

My new MantaRay paddle is great. I went with a 240 and it may be too long.

Today might have been a good day to have a rudder. According to what I've read, since my boat is prone to weathercocking, it would have helped me stay out of the main channel. Who knows. I still think rudders are just dead weight. Maybe a skeg would work for me.

I picked up an Aqua-Bound MantaRay today from REI. Why this one? It was something completely different.

We left around 10:00 AM and began with a photo shoot. Heath and I donned our Santa hats and posed for a few photos. If they turn out, we'll use them for our Christmas cards. Jean then joined us and we headed out.

Its official. I need a new paddle. My paddle just doesn't work for me. Its heavy, flutters, and wants to torque unless I hold it tightly. I'm not sure what I'll get, but it will likely be carbon with a more symmetrical blade.

The plan was to go out again this morning, but we woke up to 25-35mph winds. If we had gone out, it would have been a short trip. Both Heath and I were fairly sore from yesterday's paddle. Its a lot harder to wind through the marsh than go in a straight line on the lake.