If you had just watched a great movie, would you gulp some soda, down some Raisinets and immediately sit down to watch it again? If you has just read a great book, would you get up, sip some wine, nibble some cheese and then go back to page 1 to read it all over again? If you had just had an incredible love making experience, would you... Wait, scratch that one - that example is not going to help my thesis. If you had stuffed yourself into a small kayak cockpit and swung a seven-foot long paddle back and forth for two and a half hours, would you glug some Gatorade, stuff down a sandwich and immediately get back in the kayak to do the 13 miles all over again??
Survey Says: Apparently, four out of six kayakers would do just that.
On Sunday, Cyndi, Susan, Brian, Charlie, Stephen and I did a Wye Island Practice Paddle in advance of the Wye Island Regatta race coming up in September - and because Wye Island is just a beautiful area to paddle. The weather gods cooperated in a big way - the day before had been 97 degrees and high humidity, but a friendly cold front had come through on Saturday night (bringing some awesome thunderstorms, which first delayed and then canceled the Redskin's game that night), dropped both the temperature and the humidity and left behind some nice overcast to cut the sun's heat a bit. The temperature would barely get above 80 for our entire looong time on the water.
I left my house at about 0600, fueled up with the traditional 7-11 coffee and a muffin, and by 0700 I was on the Bay Bridge watching a blood red sun trying to burn a hole through the wispy clouds on the eastern horizon. There was a light breeze out of the north, and a little bit of ripple on the Bay as I went over it, but the water was pretty smooth. As I turned off of Rt. 50 onto the small road that leads to Wye Landing, I began to see lots of branches and leaves in the road, evidence that the storms had hit the Eastern Shore pretty hard the night before. I was sort of on mental cruise control, obeying the spirit of the speed limits if not quite exactly the letter of the law, when I came flying around a curve to find a tree had fallen across the road - I managed to squeeze by on the left with one wheel off the road and only collected a few leaves on the kayak cradles and ropes on the right side of my truck as I scraped by the downed tree.
I got to the Wye Landing ramp at about 0730 and was the first one there. Well, the first kayaker - the parking spots were completely full with pickup trucks and trailers. I guess 0730 is actually pretty late for fisherpeople and crabbers. In short order, Brian and Cyndi, Stephen, Susan and a surprise paddler (Charlie) showed up and we all started off-loading boats and gear. We were on the water by about 0810.
As we headed counter-clockwise around the island, it pretty much sorted out like one of the CPA races - Brian in his surfski and Stephen and Charlie in their skinny wooden boats, Cyndi right behind them in her dayglo Nemo, and then everyone else bringing up the rear. In this case, everyone else was was Susan and me. Susan was in her surfski but had her paddling throttle set for the pace she will use in the upcoming 90 mile Adirondack Classic, so she and I told everyone else they could go ahead at their pace since she and I were paddling at similar speeds. In a flash Brian and Charlie were gone - once we were under the Wye bridge they scooted away while Cyndi and Stephen would periodically circle back.
Two things had occurred the day before: (1) I had taken a two hour stroke lesson from Brian down at Fountainhead Park on the Occoquan, including learning to use a wing paddle which Brian loaned me; and (2) I had kinked my skeg cable after launching when some pebbles jammed into the skeg housing. So, for the Wye paddle I was using a wing paddle for only the second time and I was going without the skeg, which didn't matter too much because there was almost no wind. The first three or so miles I was just working on my stroke and rotation and swinging the paddle out vs. trying to draw it along the sides of the boat.
As I got used to using the wing paddle, my speed started to go up and I gradually pulled ahead of Susan. Her paddling stroke is like a metronome - I doubt her cadence varied more than .1% the entire time. I got the feeling she could turn around to get something out of her rear hatch and her arms and paddle would stay in the same position moving at the same speed while the rest of her rummaged around the back.
At the six mile mark I slowed to hook back up with Susan. This section is more exposed to the Bay and wind and I began to miss the skeg. Sweeping the paddle wide meant I wasn't able to go as straight as easily and the wind was at my back, meaning the kayak kept wanting to turn and sniff the wind. It was a bit more work to keep edging and make correcting strokes to go straight but I guess that was good practice.
Susan and I chatted as we made the turn around Bordley Point - the spot where a previous navigational brain fart had led Susan and a paddling partner off on a famous 35 mile detour. Stephen and Cyndi had stopped to take a break on a sandy beach, so we caught up with them here. I rafted up with Cyndi for a bit and managed to get the skeg down - that made life a good deal easier. Boat traffic was pretty light, the temperature was still low, just enough breeze (most of the time) to have a cooling effect - the remaining miles back to the launch ramp were really pleasant, including a bald eagle sighting. The bald eagle flew the same exact arc in the same exact area (suspiciously near the Pickering Creek Environmental center) where I had seen it on previous trips to Wye - I'm beginning to think it is really some kind of remotely piloted drone bird. There was a lot of tree trash in the water, more storm evidence.
Back at Wye Landing, we all snacked and drank (called "hydrating" these days, eating is probably "solidating") while Charlie and Stephen sensibly loaded their boats on top of their cars and headed home. Not so sensibly, Brian and I succumbed to female peer pressure to do a second loop - Cyndi wanted to get mileage in as part of training for the Manhattan circumnavigation she will be doing at the Mayor's Cup in October, and for Susan the first 13 miles had just been a warm-up anyway, as she soon plans to paddle the entire length of every possibly navigable body of water, non-stop, with just a few portage breaks.
The second lap was at a more relaxed pace - well, for Cyndi and Brian anyway. Susan's metronome clicked on at the same rate as the first 13 miles and I was pretty much pushing the Capella at about the same speed as the first lap, too. There was a lot more boat traffic, so more wakes to deal with but the wind was very light and some clouds kept it cool most of the time. At the halfway point at Drum Point, Cyndi and Brian stopped to stretch while Susan and I continued along knowing the two speedsters would easily catch back up to us. We chatted about balance in boats. I'm genetically deficient in balance - I've never been able to do skateboards or slalom water skiing or even be any good at snow skiing. Trying one of Brian's surfski's the day before had reduced me to pure "fear of falling in" paddling - and that was at glassy smooth Fountainhead. Susan noted that she had never done gymnastics as a girl and had to work really hard to build up balancing skills as she moved to faster and faster (and tippier and tippier) boats - while others could just hop on a baseball bat in the water and stay upright.
At about the 22 mile mark I hit the point where my body had decided this was a really stupid idea and was trying to convince my brain to stop ordering my arms to swing back and forth. I started looking at the power boats going by and realizing what a seriously backward step in evolution it was to eschew motors and propellers when you wanted to move forward in water. Cyndi was behind me at this point and helpfully commented on how crappy my stroke looked compared to earlier in the day. We passed people in a moored cabin cruiser who offered us a beer - if we made one more lap around the island, which seemed pretty funny to them, anyway. Brian chased after another powerboat and actually managed to surf its wake for a bit, probably expending 500 calories to save 5, but it was an impressive spurt.
We saw the obligatory herons and the animatronic bald eagle again, and then finally the boat house appeared that signals the end of the Wye River race - but since this wasn't the race, we still had to paddle another .5 miles to get to the launch ramp. One of the estates along this final stretch had a flock of brown woolly quadrupeds grazing in a field, and we debated what they were: sheep, llamas, emus, alpacas, push-me-pull-yous? Brian once again succumbed to peer pressure and scooted over to the shore to see what they were, but the glint in his eye after 26 miles of paddling made the woolly creatures think he had other things in mind and they nervously rambled away.
Susan lobbied for a third (and fourth and fifth) lap as we neared the ramp but I said if the Greeks had kayaks, they would have gotten out now - a 26 mile marathon was enough. I could feel every mile in my back and shoulders - lifting the boat onto the truck rack was not quite as easy as usual. The weather gods must have nudged the traffic gods - there was just a bit of traffic on Rt. 50 in Wye but it cleared away and the Bay Bridge was trouble free. Normally, I'd be thinking of getting home, putting the boat away and assuming the horizontal position, but we were having hordes of my wife's relatives over to celebrate her uncle's 86th birthday. So, instead I spent a few quality hours in front of the barbecue grill grimacing every time I twisted to the right or the left to flip the chicken/beef/shrimp deals.
Great fun - 26 miles is almost twice as far as I had ever done in a day before and today I actually don't feel as bad as I had feared. Paddling with faster/better paddlers in faster/better boats is always humbling, but a great way to learn. The GPS said 4.6 mph average over the 26 miles, which would work out to about 2:41 for the 12.5 mile Wye course. My goal is to try to be under 2.30 for the race - and then to get out of the boat and not listen to anyone who wants to go around just one more time...
Summary GPS data here.
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