I arrived early at the put-in to find that there were already about 10 people there before me. Since I had only received one RSVP and Dublin Dave had only received a few, we didn't know how many people were going to show. but boy did we have a great turn out for this trip.

We launched a few minutes late because of last minute stragglers who kept coming. By the time we launched, we had 26 boats and 28 paddlers with us. Even so, we still left two strong paddlers on the beach who said they would catch up to us.

Dave led the group out and said they would raft up at the end of the harbor channel. We all formed up (except for our 2 latecomers) and we headed out on extremely flat water for the Queen. We paddled for almost an hour and then took our first and only rest break. Just as we were about to leave, I spotted our two latecomers and several of us hung back a little longer to let them catch up. We then linked up with everybody at the Queen (BTW, if you ever want to stay on the Queen, it looked very empty on Thanksgiving weekend with only a handful of people on deck).

The group then paddled over to shoreline village, where everyone made it onto the dock without any incidents. Most of the group went to a place for fish and chips and the remainder went for pizza. Forty-five minutes later and everyone was back at the dock to launch. Boats were lowered back into the water, people climbed in while a very curious audience watched while waiting to see some carnage. Unfortunately for the spectators and fortunately for us, everybody stayed nice and dry and we were off again. Three paddlers opted to leave the group and head back at a little faster pace and two paddlers who stashed a car at Shoreline Village, decided that conditions were a little more difficult than they were comfortable with so they turned back and drove back to Alamitos Bay.

The trip back was very uneventful for the remaining 23 boats and 25 paddlers. The wind picked up in a few places and when boat wakes met with chop, there were a few areas of some interesting clapotis, but everyone handled them nicely and we all arrived at the beach as dry as when we started in the morning.

For several of the people on the trip, this was the longest paddle they had been on. It was 5.75 nautical miles in each direction that we paddled according to my GPS. That means that everyone paddled the same distance as it is to paddle to Anacapa Island from the mainland. The only difference is that there are no docks to land at 1/2 way across. For those who don't think in knots and nautical miles, the total round trip distance was about 13 1/4 regular miles.Those of you who have never paddled that far, you earned a pat on the back.

Compared to some of our earlier trip reports, this trip may sound boring--BUT it wasn't. I can honestly say that everyone had a great time on the trip and our age span of the group was the oldest at 71 to the youngest who was 11.And for those of you who know Duane's wife, lets keep it a secret that he was out with a very attractive young blonde (of course he claims she is his daughter). ;-)

After the paddle, 21 of us went to meet at Hofs Hut to discuss with Len Goodman some ideas that he had for making the club even better.

See you on the water!

    Steve Holtzman

The launch address was: 5437 E. Ocean Blvd, Long Beach View map.

Photos by Duane Strosaker - click on picture to see larger image
Getting ready to launch	Pre-paddle instructions	Nicole	Dock at Sea Port Village	John heading back

Photos by Bill & Donna Holtz - click on picture to see larger image
Bill & Donna Oil Rig Island	Jolinda & Bill	Teresa & Chris
Bill & the Dome	Bill & the Queen Mary	Dock at Seaport Village