Whale Watch
I started with a handful of paddlers that I thought would be interested. I
e-mailed them and posted the event on a few other club bulletin boards and had
nearly 20 paddlers interested in going out to look for whales. I had a few people
back out due to weekend scheduling but thought I'd still see 15 or so show up.
Wrong...
As the last paddler drove up, the seven of us loaded and lined the boats up on
the sand. I felt belittled again by the caliber of boats around me as I dragged
my scupper pro down to the waters edge. Although not the boat of choice for
touring I appreciated my little Tupperware sit-on-top more as I watched the
efforts of the closed deck cruisers take on the surf as one-by-one, on their cue,
I pulled the handles on their bows in to the surf and give their stern as big of
a push as I could muster, launching them in to the shorebreakers with Jason
Hageboom keeping them lined up in the surf. The breakers were mild but technical
as they broke close and quick. After a few wet exits in the surf, two in our group
opted to pass on another attempt at getting out, realizing the exit was expected
to be rougher.
Contrary to what you may hear, I did not try to dump Mike Brown in the surf
(honest Mike). Just as I was about to let go of his bow handle, I stepped in to a
trough and... well... he had to do it over again. I was glad to see him laughing
about it when I made it out to the group past the surf zone.
Unfortunately the launching was the adrenaline highlight of the day. We never did
spot a whale, although John Ernst made quite an effort with a more thorough search
as he made a series of rolls.
We headed South covering only about 3 miles, talking more than we paddled, but
enjoyed the comfortable conditions on the water. Mike Kory scouted ahead for the
group as we rounded the point. We had sunny skies and a mild breeze. The strong
winds and rough surf that we were expecting never came.
As we finished up, I was once again thankful for my sit-on-top as they do not
fill up with water when I wipe out in the surf. I was also thankful James Li was
there to retrieve it for me as I paddled in without my boat (a very useful
technique). The exits were much more graceful as a whole, with the highlight
being Bill Becher's high brace ride in on the white water due to the bad call I
gave him that put him right on top of said whitewater (sorry Bill).
Without loosing or breaking anything during our brief outing, we all reloaded the
cars and almost polished off the rest of the dozen doughnuts as we talked about
the paddling that day, looking forward to the next one.
To all that didn't show, I can't say you missed a whole lot but I still wish you
could've been there and hope to see you next time.
Ralph Pierson
Submitted on March 3, 2001