Tropical Storm Fay hit town on Friday, giving us a thorough drenching and high winds. One of the Sebago "usual suspects" crew had hoped to have a birthday paddle on Saturday, but that and the all-level paddle also planned for the day both got shifted to Sunday, as Saturday's weather was still pretty skittish.
Sunday was beautiful but still pretty breezy - in fact breezier than the forecast had shown. I think the forecast had been for 10 to 13 mph and the actuals (I just looked at the 3-day history to make sure I wasn't imagining this) got up to 18 or so while we were out, 20 after we got off the water. It was also supposed to get pretty warm, with a high of 89 in the afternoon.
I'm honestly not sure I would've gone if I'd known about the extra wind. I'm not feeling quite at 100% right now, and a hot day gets me huffing and puffing pretty fast, and with all the rain we'd had, a cooling roll or high brace or a bit of a swim during a shore break wasn't an option. The NYC water treatment - including sewage - system dumps straight into the waterways when overwhelmed by heavy rains, things get pretty gross after a storm; you can still paddle but you want to keep your contact with the water to a minimum. So I'd been looking at that high of 89 and feeling a little bit on the fence about going.
I'm glad I did go, though, because it ended up being a really nice paddle - in fact the only problem with it was that it was kind of short, there were time constraints for the group and we kept it to around 6.5 miles. I'm starting to feel like the 6 Mile Paddle Princess these days and one of these days I would really like to see how I hold up to a longer distance -- but this was a lovely little jaunt on the bay.
The wind ended up being a plus instead of a problem because although it was pretty shifty, for a good part of our paddle it was out of the southwest, asnd we decided to paddle against the incoming current down towards the inlet, following the western shore of the bay. That gave us enough protection from the breeze to keep boat handling from being annoying, but we still had enough of it to provide some good cooling. A hot and windless day where you can't get in the water can be some of the hardest paddling - this turned out to be quite delightful. We paddled down to just before you turn the corner into the inlet, pulling out for leisurely snack/leg stretching break at a nice quiet beach where TQ and I have stopped for lunch a few times, then we had a nice ride back to the Paerdegat Basin on the incoming tide.
Definitely could've kept going, but I'm not going to pretend that a shower and a nap in the air conditioning didn't feel good when I got home, either.
It was a photogenic day out there too - all pix after this, click on any of them for a slideshow view.
Sunday was beautiful but still pretty breezy - in fact breezier than the forecast had shown. I think the forecast had been for 10 to 13 mph and the actuals (I just looked at the 3-day history to make sure I wasn't imagining this) got up to 18 or so while we were out, 20 after we got off the water. It was also supposed to get pretty warm, with a high of 89 in the afternoon.
I'm honestly not sure I would've gone if I'd known about the extra wind. I'm not feeling quite at 100% right now, and a hot day gets me huffing and puffing pretty fast, and with all the rain we'd had, a cooling roll or high brace or a bit of a swim during a shore break wasn't an option. The NYC water treatment - including sewage - system dumps straight into the waterways when overwhelmed by heavy rains, things get pretty gross after a storm; you can still paddle but you want to keep your contact with the water to a minimum. So I'd been looking at that high of 89 and feeling a little bit on the fence about going.
I'm glad I did go, though, because it ended up being a really nice paddle - in fact the only problem with it was that it was kind of short, there were time constraints for the group and we kept it to around 6.5 miles. I'm starting to feel like the 6 Mile Paddle Princess these days and one of these days I would really like to see how I hold up to a longer distance -- but this was a lovely little jaunt on the bay.
The wind ended up being a plus instead of a problem because although it was pretty shifty, for a good part of our paddle it was out of the southwest, asnd we decided to paddle against the incoming current down towards the inlet, following the western shore of the bay. That gave us enough protection from the breeze to keep boat handling from being annoying, but we still had enough of it to provide some good cooling. A hot and windless day where you can't get in the water can be some of the hardest paddling - this turned out to be quite delightful. We paddled down to just before you turn the corner into the inlet, pulling out for leisurely snack/leg stretching break at a nice quiet beach where TQ and I have stopped for lunch a few times, then we had a nice ride back to the Paerdegat Basin on the incoming tide.
Definitely could've kept going, but I'm not going to pretend that a shower and a nap in the air conditioning didn't feel good when I got home, either.
It was a photogenic day out there too - all pix after this, click on any of them for a slideshow view.
No comments:
Post a Comment