Category: Kayaking

Best laid plans, and all that.

When I came out of work on Thursday, even though the sun was down my car thermometer said it was an unseasonably warm 60 degrees F. The next morning, I took a quick glance at the weather widget on my Powerbook’s Dashboard, and it said that it was going up to 65. And thus a half-baked plan was born. I quickly put my kayak on my roof rack, which has been left on my car just in case such a day happened.

The intention was to sneak out for a few hours around lunch time and enjoy one last paddle for the year. Unfortunately reality interferred. It turns out that I’d read the weather widget before it had updated, and Friday was actually only going to get up into the mid 50s. Still maybe do-able. But unfortunately I got hellishly busy at work on Friday, and didn’t manage to slip out. Today was warmer, but raining, but still a remote possibility, but I was even busier at work. So I didn’t get out today either. And tomorrow it’s going to be a high of 43F, which would be cold even in a wet suit which I don’t have. Doesn’t look like it’s going up again until Thursday. I guess I’m going to give up and take the kayak off the roof.

Man, if I don’t get off this overtime treadmill soon I’m going to kill myself. Or somebody else.

Short paddle

I put in at Browncroft, and paddled upstream. The stream was running pretty fast because of recent rains. Unlike last weekend, when there was only one place where I had to sprint my hardest to get through some fast water, this week there were three places like that. Because of that, I only managed to make it upstream for 35 minutes before I pooped out. And it only took me 15 minutes to get back down. But on the plus side, the high water meant there was no place where the kayak bottomed out and got stuck like last weekend.

Today’s paddle

I went for a paddle today. For a change, I put in at Browncroft Avenue and went upstream. I was hoping to get up to the place where the Elison Park shuttle puts in, but I actually fell short by about 20 feet.

I chose this put-in, because that part of the creek is more interesting than the lower bit – it’s narrow, it’s twisty, it gets shallow and then deeper, fast and then slow, and most of it is covered with trees. There is more wild-life, but paradoxically enough, there is also more human activity – these pleasant tree lined banks go through the middle of picnic areas that seem to be in constant use in the summer. Some of them are family picnics and private groups, but there was also this gigantic party with large barbeque grills set up and loud blaring rap music.

Last week those trees had made it impossible to use my GPS with the “built-in” antenna, but today I decided to try the external antenna. It made a bit difference – I didn’t see the GPS complain about lost signal at all, except under the bridge over Browncroft Avenue. The strange thing is that when it lost the signal that early in the paddle, it decided I must be driving and suddenly I saw it showing me having an average speed of around 80 mph. I reset everything as soon as I came out from under the bridge. It worked great. It shows that I paddled a distance of 4.7 miles (as opposed to Google Maps Pedometer, which says 4.6) at an average of 3.3 mph. On the way upstream, I found that on the sections where I could paddle fast, I could get it up to around 3.9 mph, but my average speed was around 3.0 mph. When I turned around, I was disappointed to find that if I pushed it hard, I could only get up to around 5.4mph, but I was so tired that most of the time I was only paddling around 3.5 or 4.0. I think that means the stream goes about 1.5mph, or maybe it goes faster and I was just more tired than I think.

On the way up, I bottomed out several times, and one time I got stuck so bad that after backing up and retrying 3 or 4 different routes, I ended up getting out of the boat, walking forward about half a boat length, and getting back in. Also, there was a tree across most of the stream fairly early on and I had to paddle as fast as I could and I just barely got through it. And when I was within sight of the place where the shuttle puts in, I could see some people in white water boats playing, but I got into a bit of fast moving water that I just couldn’t seem to paddle faster than. Since I was almost where I’d planned to turn around anyway, and the presence of the white water boats made me think the next rapid would be even faster, I turned around.

There was a fair amount of wildlife around – I saw lots of ducks, including some who were pure white. One duck kept flying down river and landing right in front of me, until I got close enough and then it would fly down river again. After a few times, I found a bit of river that was wide enough that I could pass him without activating his flight reflex. I saw several Little Green Herons, including two together in a tree. And there was a Kingfisher heading downstream, but I couldn’t find that Bruce Cockburn song that reminds me of on the iPod Shuffle. Also saw a couple of American Goldfinches.

Paddling downstream is a lot more fun than paddling upstream. On the way upstream, I tried different depths of skeg – I thought that with more skeg the kayak wouldn’t get caught by the current and turned. Great in theory, but I found that unless I was paddling pretty fast, the current got the front turned quite a bit before the skeg got into the fast water and stopped the turn. I actually had to do a back sweep in a few places to get around corners. Coming downstream is a lot more fun that way – you can use the way the current catches the upstream part of the kayak to kick you around corners, and that’s cool.

Ellison Park Shuttle Again

I decided to do the Ellison Park Shuttle again, this time without Vicki. The weather was perfect, and because of that there were a lot of people out. While I was waiting for the shuttle to leave, a large group left including a woman with a dog in her kayak. The dog had on a life jacket, which is just as well because they weren’t more than 20 feet from the dock when the dog decided to jump out, and the woman had no idea how to get the dog back in. By the time we left she was coming back to the dock with the dog swimming along side. I have no idea whether they got sorted out or not.

On the shuttle with me there were two tandem kayaks, two canoes with two people in them, and one other solo kayak, none of them looking very experienced. I helped the driver get them launched, and left after them. By the time I caught up to them (at the next bend), they were all over the river and pointing in random directions. Two women in one of the canoes rammed me as they spun around and flailed at the water, bringing back some bad memories from when I hurt my wrist last year. I hope they got settled down and pointing in the right direction eventually, because there were some snares later on.

I brought my GPS along as an experiment. The manual says it’s waterproof and floats so I thought that I’d be safe. The idea was to get a better idea of the real length of the course, and also the speed I maintain. But it was kind of a waste – during the twisty part at the top of the course, it kept losing signal, often for long stretches. So distance was even less accurate than my previous attempt using the Google Maps Pedometer.

The river was pretty high after the rain, and moving pretty fast. But the recent storms also left some traps for the unwary. There was a downed tree that blocked most of the river leaving a very fast passage along one side. And then not too much later just past Browncroft Avenue there was another tree that had fallen all the way across, but it’s actually not in the water but above it. There was a group coming upstream under it when I got there, and I was able to also duck under it in one part.

There wasn’t a lot of wildlife out today unless you count hordes of inexperienced paddlers. I saw kingfishers in the twisty wooded bit at the top, and some barn swallows under the bridges, and a few ducks, but that’s about it. I didn’t see the usual swans or geese.

Back at Baycreek, there were a couple of guys paddling around with Greenland paddles and kayaks. That looks like something I’d like to try out some time. I’ve heard they’re better on your elbows and shoulders.

Ellison Park Shuttle

Vicki and I decided to try the Ellison Park Shuttle today. We’ve paddled up and back on Irondequoit Creek many times, and we thought it would be fun to try a trip where you just go with the current the whole way.

I’ve made a Google Maps Pedometer map of the route, but I had to guess where the route actually started, so the 4.4 miles it shows might be off by plus or minus half a mile.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, but Vicki had a lot more trouble with it than I did. I’ve been paddling that kayak and that creek a lot more than Vicki has, and I’ve been paddling for decades. Vicki kept finding the current turning her sideways and crashing into the bank. I tried to explain about the way the current kicks out the stern once the boat gets a little bit sideways. I tried to explain about countering the correction before the boat even gets straight otherwise it will swing through and you’ll end up overcorrecting. I tried to explain about leaning and weight shift. But basically, I can’t explain it because I’ve just practiced it until it’s second nature, and I don’t even know what I’m doing. I just know that watching her, I seem to be doing 1/4 the work that she is. I guess it’s a matter of practice.

The top part of the creek is nice – it’s covered over with trees, and we watched a couple of Kingfishers leap frog each other down the creek. The baby ducks and geese were quite huge – hard to tell from the adults until you get close. Vicki saw an absolutely huge snapping turtle near the weir, but I didn’t see it. Down near Bay Creek we saw a couple of swans with nearly grown babies. And one crazy swan that was chasing geese. Somebody at Bay Creek says that swan seems to spend all this time chasing geese. Strange.