smoking hole

Posted by LeeG on Mar 24, 2005

This is funny,,my brother flew gliders in Nevada,,seperate subject. On the kayaking side of things here's some less than 'smoking hole' booboos. Paddling out into beautiful Lake Tahoe,,and patting pfd pockets checking for the car keys,,,,and carefully turning around seeing them sitting on the aft hatch cover,,and you're 50yds from shore in 50' of 50degree water! This is my favorite: I'm finally doing some social paddling in the north coast of Ca. Big kayaking club camping trip, my first time paddling with the 'big boys',,I'm in a group of six paddlers and about second from the bottom on skills. We launch out of a protected cove and weave through rocks to an opening between two outcroppings. White stuff crashing 8' in the air on either side of a 30' wide opening,,wave surge lifting the group one up and down a couple feet. In that protected staging area between the cove and open ocean where folks are timing their exit though the wave sets you had to paddle over rocks when the surge came in. So I'm already getting the adrenaline kick gliding in to where these guys were once there was room,,and sugar kick from the power bar i ate 15minutes before. As usual i'm the last one through,'paddle,paddle,,puff,puff,crash,boom,crash,,,,I'm ALIVE,,praise Neptune I'm alive!" ok,,like I said this was getting me pumped. So now the group of six is outside the surf zone in ocean swells lifting and dropping us with loud waves reflecting off the cliffs. Now get this,,one fellow turns around in his river boat and GOES BACK IN THROUGH THE SAME SLOT. He didn't communicate his intent and it turns out he thought he wouldn't keep up with us long boats so he opted to take the 'inside passage' through the rocks with his short maneuverable boat. At this point our anticipated three hour paddle ended in twenty minutes while folks put out a search party for him. I was steaming mad, went back through the cove to the beach, landed and did the razzle frazzle thing as minor amounts of adrenaline dissipated. So there was group B paddling north of the cove in the sheltered areas of the rock outcroppings behind the ocean waves so I decided to join them. And went madly paddling out with another person. And realized 500' out that I didn't have my pfd on. At that point I think I had graduated to what you call a 600hr pilot.

In Response to: Re: cavu???? by Kurt Maurer on Mar 24, 2005

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