We have some new terms and expressions that need to be defined before starting this week's trip report. For the very few of you on the email list who really aren't quite sure who the Old Fart Follies (OFF) group are and how does one attain membership in this prestigious organization, I'll present the following definitions.

Old Fart Follies - Group of paddlers paddling the northern parts of LA County, Ventura County, and Santa Barbara County with occasional trips further south or further north. The original Old Farts consisted of Pyro Peter O'Sullivan, Patrick, Boat Collector Martin, Mike Boat Bender Brown, and yours truly, Steve Tilley Holtzman.

Old Farts - Group of crusty old curmudgeons all of whom are over the age of 50 and proudly claim the right to wear a Tilley when appropriate or we feel like it.

Fartling - A younger paddler who is not eligible to wear the Tilley but doesn't mind paddling with a bunch of opinionated crusty curmudgeonly old farts. This name was coined by Carol Fallon because none of us liked the name Old Fart Wanna Be, or Little Stinker as Patrick initially proposed and then withdrew because some paddlers would actually be big stinkers, and he thought they wouldn't like it.

Tilley Envy - What some Fartlings suffer from when paddling with the OFF. For example, Carol Fallon was paddling with us for the first time today, and as one of the founding members of the Fartlings, she was definitely suffering from Tilley Envy - especially since she was the only woman amongst 12 men.

Most of us showed up between 8:00 and 8:30 this morning with a couple of later stragglers. This was a result of the weather and the fact that we had both Dave Houser driving up from Long Beach and Carol Fallon driving up from Newport Beach. Dave however killed everybody's excuse for being late as he was dressed and had his boat on the beach when I arrived at 8:15.

We had a sort of briefing on the beach right at 9:00. A couple of paddlers missed it because they were a little antsy and were already sitting in the water. We announced that we were going to paddle to Gina. This is normally no big deal, but the visibility was only about 1/4 mile when we launched. Everybody on the beach was given both the magnetic heading to Gina and the reciprocal for the trip back.

We headed out at a good clip and soon Speedy George and I'll keep up with him Ron were way out front and invisible in the fog.The conditions were absolutely calm. No wind or current and the swell was almost non-existent. Carol asked how big the swell was and I think I really disappointed her when I mentioned the biggest ones were probably about 1 foot.

We took a short break to allow the stragglers to catch up and we then set out to finish the trip. George called on the radio to find out where we were when we were still about 15 minutes out and not visible in the fog. Gina showed up like an apparition when we were within about a mile of her.

Pyro Peter and Inuit John were both paddling some of John's SOF boats that he has built and bringing up the rear. John really looks like an Inuit paddler in his Baidarka while wearing a black Tuliuq over his PFD. Fartling Tim, I Can break Anything JPL Makes, Werner was with us for the second week in a row in his Telkwa. We never know if he is going to be paddling his luxury boat or his sports car Skerry. Kevin Harris and Ari Danesh were with us on their SOT's and they had no trouble keeping up with the 4 knot paddling speed we were doing for most of the trip.

When we got out to Gina, several of us decided to do some rolling in the cleaner water off shore than closer in. Peter was making John's new SOF look downright easy to roll. Chris, Airplane Jock, Wood tried a few and nailed his as well. I tried one with my new GP and almost made it. Peter commented that my set-up was off and the paddle was deep. Also, he mentioned that I should slide my forward hand further out away from the paddle shoulder into the loom. Inuit John, said this paddle might be harder for me to roll with because it is shorter and narrower than my other GP.

In any event, I took their suggestions, and found my new paddle rolls beautifully. I just have to make certain that I do my part and set up correctly.

Boat Collector Martin was playing with his new Pintail and was commenting that his rolls were getting sloppy. I mentioned that if he wound up in an upright position breathing air, they had to have been good ones. Old Fart Lee Hyde showed up - he's been missing for the last several months and it was good to have him in the group again.

Finally, the Old Farts and Fartlings had enough, and we started paddling for home in the fog. There were a few times when I mentioned to several paddlers that they were not heading in the right direction. In fact it sort of freaked me when I noticed that two of them were paddling 90 degrees to my direction. What did they know that I didn't---Even Engineer Dave who was using a GPS "because Duane isn't with us", started heading off on the wrong track for a while. A quick shout brought them back to reality.

I found that with the lack of wind and current - my dead reckoning navigation by compass and time only were right on. On both the outbound and inbound legs, I didn't have to do any corrections - the compass headings worked perfectly. Of course, for safety's sake, I did have a gps inside my day hatch in case we needed it.

We did not see any dolphins, whales, or sharks today. All we saw were some harbor seals and some sea lions. On the way back, George called and said that he and Ron were going to keep paddling and head towards Ventura for a while.

After making it back to CIH, Seven of the original 13 paddlers for today headed out to Big Daddy-O's for lunch and to prove that we are not morons. We took a photo of several of the group under the "No Morons Allowed" sign for any doubters out there.

Steve Holtzman

Pictures by Carol Fallon and Engineer Dave Houser will be forwarded separately to Ray for inclusion on the web site.

Steve advertised this paddle as launching "Promptly" at 0900 and it did. Even John P. showed up on time, hauling two beautiful self-built kayaks. The new one looked incredibly at home in the water, moving along like a shark.

I was incredulous when Steve announced a destination of Oil Platform Gina, 3 1/2 miles at sea, as the thick fog presented hazards. But it became clear that he was serious after we got underway and we had plenty of experienced people among the 12 paddlers, so off we went.

Ron Stoliar and I were feeling a bit frisky, so we took off into the fog and arrived in 49 and 51 minutes respectively. While I was waiting for others to arrive, I nearly drifted into the buoy loaded with sea lions. Usually they bark constantly, but were quiet today for some reason. One big guy dived in and went right under my boat. It was a treat to seem him rocket past me underwater in the relatively clear sea.

I noticed that some people took Steve's 210 degree bearing literally and headed that way too, leaving them well north of the desired course track. I spotted two groups at 15 and 12 degrees, vs. target of 30 degrees from Gina.

Ron and I both had early afternoon engagements with our significant others, so we headed out at 1042. I arrived back at the breakwater at 1121 and Ron, a relatively new beginner, hit it only five minutes later. Dat boy- he gonna be gooooood!

Thanks for a nice paddle. The only thing missing was the traditional Sunday brunch at Big Daddio's. It sure is nice to be back from frigid and snow-covered York, PA, home of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the famous M-88 Tank that pulled down Saddam in the square.

13 kayakers, (Steve Holtzman, Patrick Martin, Carol Fallon, Ari Danesh, John Petersen, George Miller, Peter O’Sullivan, Ron Stoliar, Mike Brown, Tim Werner, Chris Wood, Kevin Harris and I) showed up for the Old Farts Follies (OFF) paddle at Channel Islands Harbor 1/23/05. I publicly became and OFF member by wearing my Christmas Tilley hat for the first time. It is against my nature to admit my age because I am still stuck in my first childhood, but hey it’s a nice paddling hat. There was a quite a mix of paddlers and boats. There were two SOF kayaks built by John Petersen, two S&G kayaks, plastic and fiberglass sit-insides and one SOT.

The on-the-spot decision was to paddle to Gina offshore oil production platform. Steve said that is fun thing to do in the fog. It just pops out of the fog at you when you get close enough. When we got started at the 9 AM scheduled time, the fog was starting to show signs of trying to burn off. The air, of course with the fog, was still and as a result the water was glassy smooth even though it had a small mixed swell from who knows where.

George and Ron were the fast group, that disappeared into the distance. Peter and John chose to bring up the rear. The rest of us leap-frogged around in the middle.

We were all wandering around a bit trying to chase Steve’s recommended 210 degree heading. I early on smacked and broke one of the bungee clips on my compass with my paddle so my compass was useless lying on its side on my deck. The best I could do is note that the sun showing through the fog was just in front of my left shoulder. So I just stayed in the group and left my GPS behind my seat. Steve was the guiding foghorn that bellowed out course corrections on occasion.

Eventually George and Ron became dots that disappeared in the distance. I was a bit amazed how short of a distance kayakers even in calm conditions become hard to spot on the water. At the same time Peter and John were falling behind. Every time I looked back at them one of them was upside-down or lying on his side sculling.

We reassembled at Gina 3.3 nautical miles out from the breakwater. Peter let me look at his Lendal paddle, a 215 cm whitewater paddle with large plastic blades and a crank carbon shaft. I was temped to leave him “up a creek” because his paddle seemed to be made just for me.

After the group was done chatting, munching and rolling we took off on the magic 30-degree heading back to CIH. After a short distance we started wandered a bit in the fog. Carol and I start talking about GPS headings and bearings so I pulled my GPS out. For the heading a GPS displays the average of your most recent traveled path. If you are turning, wandering, stopped or if the GPS had a recent bogus phantom location, the GPS heading will not match where you are facing. The GPS bearing is the compass direction you need to travel to get to your programmed waypoint. The bearing to a distant waypoint only wanders by a major bogus location glitch, which is not too common, and thus is much more stable number on the GPS. So I usually let the GPS stabilize and note the bearing to a waypoint and then use my compass to establish a heading to match the bearing. Well, I fell into the GPS trap and got the required bearing and rushed in getting an initial heading and subtracted the two and then pointed the correction angle to the left instead of to the right. Before the heading on my GPS had time to catch up (remember my compass is on its side), Old Foghorn with a working compass on his deck quickly corrected us to get back on the magic 30-degree heading. So I fell back into line with the group. As I paddled with the group I, with amusement, silently watched the bearing on the GPS (the direction we should be traveling) slowly grow to 45 degrees while the compass crowd was still chasing 30. We all knew we were getting close to the breakwater when several sailboats were sort of headed to or from the same location. Finally the breakwater began to show and everyone naturally made the 15-degree correction to the right to head for the opening. It was a fun exercise in navigation with a good group.