The remainder of the group was Peter O'Sullivan, Patrick Martin, George and Carol Miller, Kevin Harris, Paul Chiang, Chris Wood and I. We had a short safety briefing and I found that Kevin had even printed out and signed his own CKF waiver. That would be nice if we could get everybody to do that before paddles, but that's probably wishful thinking.

The weather was very cooperative and we paddled out, with Carol Miller in the lead, into relatively flat water with almost no wind. We turned East out of the harbor and set a course for the Hueneme Buoy. Is Carol trying to take George's nickname of "Speedo" away?

On the way there, Patrick and I simultaneously saw what appeared to be a sleeping seal right in front of his boat. All that was visible was the hump of his back. Both of us decided it would be best not to spook this animal, so we slapped our paddles on the water to let him know of our presence. It reminded me of a person waking up from a deep sleep, because it seemed a little disoriented at first and then quickly dove. We weren't able to go around him because by the time we could see it, we were just about on top of him. Dark objects floating even with the surface of the water are not very visible.

We took a long break at the buoy, and noticed that the wind was picking up. Actually, we noticed this when we realized that we had been blown 1/2 way to the Hueneme Pier. The original plan was to make a wide circle out towards Gina and then head into the harbor. The wind had picked up to about 10 knots, and the wind waves had become about 1 - 2 feet in height. (Sorry to disappoint those paddlers who were thinking they were 4 - 5 foot waves).

Rachel, who is a bicyclist, noticed that everybody in the long touring boats seemed to be having a much easier time paddling than she was. The fact that her boat was only 1/2 as long hadn't registered yet. Several people explained that the longer a boat is, the faster it is capable of going. To her credit, Rachel was able to keep up with the rest of us. Just goes to show what younger more fit people can do.

We finally arrived back at the harbor, cleaned the boats, and went to Daddy-O's for the obligatory Tri-Tip meal. Rachel, of course, opted for a veggie burger.

It was a fun day on the water, and I hope to see both Kevin and Rachel join us again.

Steve Holtzman