After a brief safety briefing and introduction of all of the paddlers, my co-host Dave O'Connor and 75 miler Steve Wilson demonstrated an Eskimo Bow Rescue and an assisted T rescue for those who had never seen one. I had the easy job of narrating while they did all of the work.

Finally it was time to hit the water. Because my boat is still being repaired, both Dave and Mike had offered me the use of one of their boats. Mike's Sirocco is the plastic version of my boat so I opted for that as there would be much less of a learning curve. We did find out the hard way that my skirt which fits my boat nicely, didn't fit on Mike's. Fortunately one of the other paddlers (who came up from San Diego) had an old spare nylon skirt that I was able to use although it fit a little loosely. As a result, every time I edged my boat or the water dripped off of my paddle into my lap, it seemed to find a way down onto my legs or back.

As a result of the skirt episode, we launched about 30 minutes late and it was all my fault and I apologize for that. We set off on an easy pace of about 2 1/2 nautical miles per hour. For some people on the trip, it was the first time out of the bay but they quickly adapted to the stronger winds and rougher waters that we encountered. The wind was a little stronger than I had hoped for and several of our paddlers learned better techniques for using their rudders and skegs by seeing what worked for them.

We had an uneventful paddle to the Queen and then headed for the dock at Shoreline Village and lunch. The dock there is rather high and some people had never done a dock exit from their boats. A few of the more experienced paddlers got out first and everybody lent a hand with helping the others. Everybody did a perfect exit--nobody got wet, although some people were a little more graceful than others. The two docks where we parked the 23 kayaks were impressive. I understand we even had people coming down to see if they could rent one of the boats.

After getting ashore and making the necessary pit stops at the restrooms, some people headed for pizza, while others headed for seafood. After lunch, we all headed back to the dock to launch. We had 4 boats and 5 people opt to only do a one way trip and the rest of us (except Dave O'Connor) all proceeded to get in our boats. Again everybody launched flawlessly. Dave then demonstrated how to do a backwards seal launch off of the dock. Of course he did it with style, grace, and finesse and made it look very easy.

We then headed back. Duane Strosaker and Steve Wilson left the group because they had other commitments and time was running short. Tim Werner joined them, because he was running out of time on his parking meter. Fortunately, he made it with 4 minutes to spare.

Dave and I would really like to thank all of the experienced paddlers who helped us watch out for the others in the group, and helped everybody land and launch at the docks. We would also like to thank everybody for the great attitudes that were displayed today. It's fun to paddle with a group like this--we had no whiners or complainers and that was nice.

Even those people who had never paddled this far and were starting to feel the distance at the end never complained or gave up. Congratulations on doing your longest paddle and everybody on this trip can paddle with me again. I really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed working with Dave on setting this trip up.

Now it would be nice to see some of the other club members in the group start hosting a trip. Those of us who have done them will be happy to help and even co-host with you for your first time. So let's get on the water and paddle!

    Dublin Dave & Steve Holtzman

Directions:
Coming from North of Long Beach - take the 405 south, turn south on the 710, turn east on Ocean Boulevard.

Coming from South of Long Beach - take the 405 north, turn south on Seal beach Blvd, turn right on Westminster Blvd, turn left on Bay Shore Avenue, turn left on Ocean Blvd.

Park near 5437 East Ocean Blvd., near the City of Long Beach Sailing Center and the Gondola Getaway. We will be on the beach on the bay side.

View map
View picture of Los Alamitos Bay
Map showing route (PDF format 446 KB)