Category: Kayaking

Snow? Well, not quite. Rochester is pollen city these days. My car is covered in a green film. Lately, though, the prevalent airborne thing is cottonwood fluff. The air is full of it, and so is the surface of the water. It’s very picturesque.
Continue reading “Paddling in the “snow””

I did this paddle again, from Browncroft Avenue up to the point where Baycreek puts in for the Ellison Park shuttle. (Actually there is a pretty hefty rapid just upstream from that put-in so I doubt I’ll ever get upstream from there.) I’ve done it before, such as when I wrote about it last August in Rants and Revelations » Today’s paddle. It’s over 90 degrees out today, and the prospect of a shady stream seemed like a great idea.

I’m a little concerned because the little parking spot I park at had new “NO TRESPASSING” signs. The parking spot is in front of a small fenced off area that fences off a small brick structure that belongs to the Monroe Water Authority. I can’t imagine that a service truck from the Monroe Water Authority is going to show up at 4:30pm on a Thursday before a long weekend.

The stream was running extremely fast and high today. In previous paddles, there have been places that required me to push along the bottom and even to get out and drag – those places were deep enough to keep paddling, deeply in some places, and shallowly in the place I’ve had to get out and drag before. It was hard work, and I’m actually surprised I made it all the way to the turn-around point. I felt a bit Damiano Cunego today – in today’s stage of the Giro D’Italia, he kept sliding off the back of the leading group, but catching back up to it again and staying within contact to finish a pretty decent 5th. Or maybe I was more like Mickaël Buffaz who yesterday while on a long solo break-away actually climbed off his bike and tearfully begged his coach to let him quit, but recovered and pedalled well for the rest of the race until he was eventually caught near the end. And I would paddle hard and get tired, then stop for a swig of water, and be ready to paddle some more. Of course, I had the knowledge that it was going to get way easier after I reached the turn-around point.

The wild life was pretty sparse today. A lot of ducks, a pair of grey catbirds, a pair of goldfinches bathing in the stream, mourning doves, swallows. I didn’t see any geese on the way up, but by the time I got back there were a couple of pairs near where I put in, including one that had at least 11 fairly large down covered babies. There were a lot of people out walking their dogs, and I nearly had to repel boarders in the main “dog park” part of Ellison Park.

It was a great paddle, but I worked too hard, and my elbows and shoulders are feeling it.

I went up the left branch of the creek after the weir, up to Old Browncroft Blvd. 4.4 miles round trip. The air was a little below 70 degrees and the water still a bit cold, and I wore my wet suit with no shirt underneath, and my PFD. The PFD isn’t very good, and it rides up above my fat stomach and ends up rubbing against my jaw as I paddle. The wet suit rubs a bit under the arms but I’m pretty sure it would be fine if I wore a t-shirt.

I tried hard to paddle with good technique, but I don’t think I did a very good job. My elbows are quite sore now. When I got to the turn around point, my left shoulder and right fore-arm were sore and I thought I’d have to take it easy on the way home, but with the current behind me I actually ended up doing some good hard paddling and I wasn’t sore when I got home.

If you look at the Google Maps Pedometer map on the link above, you’ll see that I went into a large area of open water. I think of it as “the lake”, but it’s not really one. The shores of “the lake” provide a lot of mud flats, and on the flats there were dozens of sandpipers. There seemed to be two types of them, some really tiny ones about the size of a goldfinch, and some about half way between that and a killdeer, but I wouldn’t swear to that. I also saw some highly aggressive red wing blackbirds – some attacking each other, and some chasing off some small falcon-form birds like a Merlin or a Kestrel. I guess the females are coming soon. This area also attracts vultures, which is not very encouraging when you’re struggling, and they were out today.

Speaking of birds, what is it about Great Blue Herons that make them so stupid? They see a boat coming upstream, so they “escape” by flying up further upstream, only to have to fly off again 5 minutes later as you get closer. Why is it so hard for them to figure out that they just have to fly around behind you? Bird brains!

On the trip back, I discovered a “gaggle” of young girls in kayaks harassing a swan. There were about 8 or 9 of them, and they had the swan surrounded and were sort of chasing it around. The poor thing had its wings up in a threat display, but there were too many for it to attack or get away from. I didn’t see an obvious leader, so I yelled at them to leave the damn swan alone before they killed it, and paddled on home. When I got to Bay Creek, I asked about this group and the guy working there said that they were supposed to be with an instructor, and he’d speak to them when they got back.

Last year’s first paddle of the season was March 31st. This year’s was May 10th. Ok, granted the spring was much later this year, but I still see it as a sign of how disorganized I’ve been this spring.

The air temp was in the high 70s, and the water temp was cool to the touch. I just traded in the wet suit that I got for Christmas for one that goes around my huge gut, and so I was terribly over dressed in a wet suit and polar weave long sleeved shirt. I brought along my iPod shuffle but as I parked the car I could hear the sounds coming from the marsh and decided to leave it behind.

The water was smooth as glass, and I didn’t feel any current at all. I was paddling without a skeg – I always heard that using a skeg on smooth water was a crutch, but I wanted a boat that took some growing into and it took me a while to get to this point, so I was happy that I seem to have outgrown it.

The marsh is in full spring mode. The reeds have all been mashed down over the winter, leaving just a few cat tails sticking up. A lot of those cat tails had male red wing blackbirds singing out their territory and keeping a wary eye on the other males. I don’t think the females have arrived yet.

Down in the mashed down reeds, lots of geese were nesting, although I didn’t see any goslings. At one point there is a log in the middle of the stream, and on it there were two goose eggs on top of the log, and five or six other eggs down in a crook in the log. No goose anywhere near by, so I wonder if the goose got frustrated with its eggs rolling away and abandoned the nest.

I only saw one swan, not surprisingly in exact same place I’ve seen swans before, and many pairs of ducks. Up near the wier, I came across a Great Blue Heron. By keeping my paddles down so that they wouldn’t be sillohuetted against the sky (I normally have a high paddling style) I was able to ghost by without him flying away.

Other bird life included an American Goldfinch and another yellow bird about the same size, but without any black. I’m not sure, but I think I saw some red in it as well. I also could see a float plane doing take offs and landings on the bay – at first I thought it was Mike’s plane, but it appeared to have a huge tail that marked it as a Maule.

Near the weir, I also saw a small mustiled, somewhere in size between a chipmunk and a red squirrel but longer, swimming across the stream. As it climbed out on the bank, I could see it was black or very dark brown. I’m guessing it was a mink. It was definitely thinner than a muskrat.

As I reached the turn around point, I started reflecting on what a wonderful little oasis this is. The marsh is surrounded on both banks by lovely woods, what I still think of as “orienteering woods” – the sort of trees that you could really see yourself running through at good speed. Yeah, behind the sounds of the red wing blackbirds and other wildlife, you could hear traffic noise and the occassional siren, but you could shut that out and make believe you were in a real wilderness. It’s no Algonquin park, but it’s beautiful and it’s here.

According to Google Maps Pedometer, I paddled 3 miles today. Not a bad start to the season.