Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Busy Busy Busy 1 - A Slightly Better New Year's Day Trip Report and a Great Link

Hiya! How's the new year going for you?

Mine is busy busy busy, so I'm not going to have a lot of time for blogging this week. Fortunately, though, I do have a couple of interesting things that I can toss up here, so it won't be a post-free week.

I think I'm going to do these in ascending order of interesting-ness. I'll start with a slightly more in-depth trip report that I wrote up yesterday for the NYCKayaker list - everybody was sharing their holiday paddle stories & I couldn't resist jumping in. In posting the link to the pictures I posted here, I also described the paddle a little bit better:

As long as people are sharing year-end paddle tales - we had a FANTASTIC New Year's Day paddle at Sebago. The annual Frostbite Regatta, potluck & general meeting were postponed because there were still access issues out in Canarsie - partly the snow, which was plowed from Paerdegat Avenue North but still causing big parking issues, and partly because a major renovation project that's going on at the club got set back by the blizzard. Our commodore made a wise executive decision & declared the 1st a work day; I looked at the forecast & first said "Work, shmurk, I wanna go paddling" -- then I had a moment of guilt where I thought no, maybe we should work. I was on the fence but thank goodness a friend who is a bad influence gave me just the shove I needed to forget this silly idea about being a responsible club member & kick off the New Year on the water, which is something I really love to do. We ended up with a nice little crew of 6.

It was absolutely incredible weather out there, the bay was like glass at times. The best part was, we set out with the idea that we were going to go look for seals, but the seals came and found us! The first two were spotted not far from the Paerdegat and I think they followed us for a good ten or fifteen minutes. Led to it being a bit of a short paddle because we spent that time paddling backwards (good trick for sealwatching - they like to follow boats, so if you paddle backwards you can see them). The third saw us & actually approached us while we were rafted up on a tea and cocoa break - I got a half-decent picture of him - not great, but you can actually tell it's a seal, not a rock or a piling or a coconut or any other of the many things out there that look a lot like seals when you are looking for seals.


Continuing in ascending order - Carol Lois Haywood over at the Trawlers and Tugs maritime art blog left a link on my Facebook page saying that she'd reposted about one of my "Graveyard of Ships" expeditions. Had to go check that out, it was such a nice surprise to find my photos on a maritime art blog the first time & I was tickled to be there again. I rather love that in her world I am a "maritime photographer"! :D Anyways, she had a few new entries since the last time I'd visited, and I absolutely adored her holiday greetings post! Wonder where they put the batteries?

Hope you enjoy it too.

OK, lunch break's over. Back to work for me now - but stop by in the next day or two for a post or two (have to see how it breaks up) from the coolest guest poster ever.

note, slightly later: Oy. I didn't realize quite how high the cool-guest-blogger bar had been set this week until I read this a couple of minutes ago.

Mine is pretty darned cool, though.

2 comments:

Orlando Clegg Fitz said...

Thanks for the link to my cool guest post bonnie.

I am pretty cool even if I am only a pirate bear who sailed in the Sydney to Hobart on the wild seas down the east coast of Australia. I was hunting treasure for the Oncology Children’s Foundation (OCF) to raise money for childhood cancer research. Please support me and fill up my treasure chest!

Aaaaaarrrrrggghhhhh!

bonnie said...

Loved the post. Good luck in reaching your goal, Orlando!