The day started out (and ended too) with almost no wind, air temps of about 70, and bright sunshine. I received a kelp award as we got into our boats. Not having paddled for about 3 weeks, I was sitting on my back deck and sliding into the cockpit, when I lost my balance and deposited my butt into the water instead of the cockpit.

Picking up my damaged ego and wet butt, I then got in the boat and paddled. The other paddlers on the trip were George "Speedy" Miller, Chris "The Aviator" Wood, Mike "Tug" Bode, John Peterson, and "Pyro Peter" O'Sullivan. I noticed as we headed out, that the group had 4 traditional paddles and only 2 Euro paddles.

The paddle itself was totally uneventful. As we returned to the Kiddie Beach area just before we headed out to do a paddle around the breakwater, I asked "Tug" if he wanted to get some more towing practice. Since he did, he hooked up to my boat and started paddling away. I then motioned for John Peterson to come up and I hooked my tow line to his boat. Since George, Peter, and Chris did not have tow lines with them, they hooked up to john as a contact tow.

Mike was really working to tow 5 boats with none of us helping to paddle. I saw he was working very hard and asked if he could do this for several miles. He grunted that he didn't think he could do more than several yards. Finally, I took pity on him and suggested that he look behind him. The look on his face as he saw that he was towing 5 boats was priceless.

After paddling, we adjourned to Daddy-O's for lunch and we all wished Peter well in his surgery on Monday.

Steve Holtzman