The Paddle That Wasn't
Today was a great day to be "hosting" a paddle, and my friend Pete O'Sullivan
and I seemed to fall into one today. One of our usual paddling buddies, Mike
Brown was not going to be able to paddle with us today, but he announced on
the CKF and SBKA email lists that Pete and I would be leading a trip.
There were a few emails back and forth between Pete and I that basically went
"I'm not leading a paddle today are you????" In any event, Mike called
yesterday and said he would be able to paddle with us. My wife and I met Mike
at our usual meeting spot and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Denny
Bean was with him. It had been a little while since Denny paddled with us and
it was good to see him. We started driving to Ventura and passed a car with a
boat on top. It turned out to be a paddler we had briefly met two weeks ago at
the Friendship Paddle named Rich who joined us on this trip.
When we got to the put-in we saw George and Carol Miller going to the boat
launch ramp. George had injured his foot and didn't want to have to do as long
a carry with two boats. Carol had her brand new Kevlar Perception Shadow out
for the 2nd time. With her boat in yellow and white, My wife's new Shadow in
yellow and white, and George's Eclipse, (same boat--just sized for a larger
paddler) in yellow and white, we were joking about the "Banana Brigade."
We also had Bill and Jane Becher join us in their tandem, a new friend, Jon
Berry, in his Romany Explorer, and Len Goodman past pres and Grand Fubar of
CKF.
After a while, we managed to get everyone on to the water and the first
decision had to be made--where were we going. We decided to head north towards
the Ventura pier and Len Goodman and I took Sweep positions. Since Mike is
usually a speed demon in his new boat, we asked him to take the lead. Both my
wife and Carol, were not up for doing anything extreme because they are still
learning how their new boats react in different situations and the wind was
starting to kick up a bit as we paddled out. The main part of the group,
decided when they reached the pier, that they would continue out to the next
point for a little bit of play in the surf. I hung with the back end of the
group at the pier and after a while, we headed back as the winds were really
starting to kick up.
The seas were a little confused and it made for some interesting paddling on
the return. Every once and a while you would hear somebody just whoop and
holler. We made an uneventful return to the beach and everyone made it in
through the 3 inch surf without capsizing.
All in all --for a totally non-organized trip, we had a lot of fun, met some
new people and just thoroughly enjoyed each others company and the water. This
is what paddling is all about.
Steve Holtzman
Submitted on June 24, 2001