Category: Revelation

Yesterday, Jim contacted me minutes after I woke up asking if I wanted to paddle. It’s been above freezing during the day for a couple of days now, and there was open water near where he lives. He had to get going quickly because he had something going, and I had to do some work too, so I rushed down to the water. Unfortunately in my rush, I forgot my GPS, but even worse, I didn’t stretch properly. Jim brought this funny boat with no deck on top and a one-bladed paddle. I think he called it a “canoe”.

We were paddling up into a strong current, which meant hugging in as close to the bank as we could, and then when the river was blocked by ice, he turned up this creek that was running pretty fast. And worse still, it would get very shallow and very fast at the same time, meaning that I had no depth to paddle in just when I needed it the most – I ended up being pushed backwards several times and I was worried I was going to break my rudder. The rudder is designed to kick up if you run over something going forwards, but has no protection for going backwards. But mostly what I ended up doing because of the lack of stretching was hurting my shoulder. I didn’t want to make it worse, so I paddled very easily back to the put-in and let Jim go off and do some real paddling without me.

Today was even warmer than yesterday, so Jim, Stephen and I met at the same location. This time, my plan was to stretch a lot more, get woken up and warmed up, and show up a bit early so I can start paddling easy before they both show up. And it worked – my shoulder was a bit sore, but it felt more like a residual from yesterday, and got less sore as time went on.

I got to wear the new Hydroskin shirt, paddling jacket and neoprene socks that Vicki bought me for Christmas. They were very good. Actually too good – after warming up for a few minutes, I took off the jacket and my pogies. Man, it’s great to be warm and comfortable while paddling in January.

We warmed up by paddling downstream, because it was clear of ice a long way downstream and not very far upstream from the put-in. Jim said “once we turn upstream, it will be `anything goes'”, which is code for “Jim and Stephen are going to try to race and leave me in the dust”. One thing about paddling my Looksha that I think I’ve mentioned before – in spite of being wider than the Thunderbolt, the cockpit is actually might tighter, and in winter clothes my hips are locked in place and I don’t get much rotation. I should probably see about removing or planing down the foam sides of the seat. Because of that, I didn’t feel my technique was really working right. I really miss paddling the Thunderbolt, but every time I crunched into an ice floe or over some debris close in to shore, I was glad to have my “beater boat”.

When we turned upstream, Jim started going hard before Stephen had even finished turning, which I thought was a neat trick, but it turns out afterwards that Jim had seen that I was ready and thought we were both ready. Anyway, I held Jim’s wake for about a mile or so as he snuck in between fallen trees and ice floes up the shore, but it was hard going. My heart rate was a pretty steady 160 bpm, which is close to my anaerobic threshold. Stephen managed to grind his way up to us, and when I found my heart rate going even higher than 160, I decided to let Jim go and Stephen passed me and continued to ride Jim’s wake. I kept grinding along at 160 bpm and losing some ground. Eventually they decided to stop for a rest, and I caught up to them, but they continued to go at a fast pace so I started losing again. This would never have happened in my Thunderbolt! (Mostly because I would have broken my rudder on a submerged log in the first mile and been out of action.)

Jim and I snuck out this afternoon for a paddle. It had been snowing pretty hard this morning, and I envied Dan and Stephen who were going skiing, but by the afternoon it had warmed up to the mid thirties and was raining off and on. I was nearly ready to knock off for the day when I got a text message from Jim inviting me to paddle. I can never say no to Jim, so I loaded up the Looksha and headed out to the river.

The river had dropped quite a bit – you could see a shelf of ice about a foot or more up from the current water levels. That made finding a place to put in a bit difficult. But at least the river wasn’t full of ice floes this time. It was still running fast, though. We paddled up stream using every trick to try to stay out of the main current, but barely managed about 4.4 mph the whole way up. Because I was in the Looksha, I could be a lot more daring in terms of cutting between debris in the river, both because the boat is stable and strong as a tank, and also because it has a kick-up rudder so a submerged trunk won’t knock the rudder off the boat or knock me out of the boat. Jim and I were able to experiment with a few tricks where we could see where sneaking in close to shore could gain you a couple of boat lengths on somebody taking a safer route out in the current.

Coming back was a different story – we hung out in the middle of the stream to get full advantage of it, and averaged about 7.4 mph or so. The big advantage of coming back is that because there is no advantage to getting in close to shore, we could paddle side by side and talk more.

One seemingly contradictory thing about this Looksha is that while it’s a big wide stable tank, it’s actually a tight squeeze getting in and out. The seat has side pieces that hold me in pretty tight when I’m wearing cold weather clothing, and the cockpit is much shorter front to back so I can’t draw my knees up. Getting out on a steep bank where I couldn’t use a paddle brace was pretty undignified looking, and I got kind of muddy, but at least I only got one foot soaked in freezing cold water.

Bottom line? Last year, my last paddle of the season was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year, I’m paddling the day before New Years. It doesn’t get any better than this.

It was a brilliantly sunshiny day, and the temperature was around 37 degrees F, so Jim and I decided to go paddling in a part of the Genesee River near his place that was “open” (for some value of open). Our usual partner in crime, Stephen B, was busy with family stuff. When I arrived, the floes were pretty dense, very thick, and roaring down the river at about 1.5 miles per hour. I kind of wish I’d brought my Looksha instead of banging up my Thunderbolt. The Looksha is a stronger, heavier boat, plus if I’m going to damage a boat, I’d rather damage the one I’m not going to be racing. Jim paddles a big heavy downriver boat for just that reason.

Trying to get in on the slippery bank, I managed to soak both feet, which is not good. Then it was hard to get turned upstream without going out into the main flow of floes. But we were able to sneak up stream by staying tucked in close to the near bank. Then after a while the ice jammed in on our side of the river, but the other side was very clear of ice for over half the width of the river. We ferry over by turning perpendicular to the current and allowing ourselves to drift downstream as we pick our way across. We ended up repeating this process a few times as the river snaked back and forth. If you choose the right point to cross in a gap between floes, you don’t even lose much paddling time.

The banks are high, and so we’re enjoying the bright sunshine but are protected from whatever wind there might be. It didn’t take long for my feet to warm up, and with my PFD on I didn’t even bother with the anorak I’ve been wearing on the colder days. (I got a really nice paddling jacket for Christmas, but it was one size too small so I’ll have to wait before I get to paddle in it.)

With the river flowing so fast, we paddled up for about 55 minutes, and down for about 25 minutes. On the way down, my feet started to get cold again – Jim said that cold feet are often the deciding factor for how long you can paddle in the cold, and he recommended that I get some neoprene wet suit boots or something. But even cold feet couldn’t diminish my feeling of how great this was. Even a bad day paddling is better than a good day in the gym, and this was a good day paddling.