rick stoehrer

you guys are really fortunate to go and take the instruction there....warm water, sandy bottoms, the triangle right off shore and the calibre of paddlers and people you will be surrounded, immersed and instructed by are world class! have a great time!

"endnagering ourselves"? huh? what? we walk on the tops babe...on the tops! (HA!) besides which, hell cookie...we'd rather die than let the cook get hurt! have a great time this week! you and the many other folks we all know (paula, alex, cooopah...who else) will do great and i don't know if you will be reading the board or not, but i think we've all always admired and loved your complete lack of that "oh $hit" gene! oh, yeah....triangle here she comes.... have a great time in georgia and tell tom and shawna and leone that "the big corn fed american boys" say hi! whatever you do, don't let shawna talk about medical emergencies and by all means ask her about that guy she though she stove the ribs in on the penwryn mawr a few weeks back! tell her we are all going to come to the west coast and she and leon can show us around! -j-

whatever we call them, all these trips have to start with the same background info....where are we going? how do we propose to get there and can we comfortably do it given the conditions we are likely to encounter? how do we cope with an emergency? what are our bail outs, options, strengths and risks? just some basic, really necessary questions that can be vital to your well being and the well being of the folks you share the water with. regardless of the kind of trip we are on, these questions have to get asked every time you leave the beach. questions every one of us has to ask, either the participants or the shlub that posted the trip. practice makes permanent....it's true. do the homework and examine your on water goals repeatedly each time....

with the cancellation of the womens level 2 sng, the rescues sng will run solo and meet in rockport on back beach (by the band stand building) at 10 am. this late in the season, i don't think that parking is going to be an issue...they pretty much roll up the sidewalks.... forecast and tide info is below but you should CHECK ALL THESE THINGS FOR YOURSELF - ALWAYS CHECK. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN WELL BEING! there...disclaimer done. so, we'll meet and chat on the beach awhile and discuss some of the things that need to be thought about when you push the boat into the water - talk about weather and how that impacts what we want to do, we'll talk about gear - why you have what you have or should have what maybe you're missing and then we can start a review of rescues/tows on shore and then practice there in the harbor. if that all goes well and folks would like and the weather allows, we can stick our noses out a ways and see how those rescues/tows feel out in a bit of swell... afterwards, we will debrief on the beach and see what folks liked, didn't like and what they encountered that was different than they expected... pack a lunch and see you on saturday! FORECAST (from maineharbors.com and confirmed with noaa) SAT... S WINDS 15 TO 20 KT WITH GUSTS UP TO 30 KT. SEAS 4 TO 6 FT... SUBSIDING TO 2 TO 4 FT IN THE AFTERNOON. (from maineharbors.com) hi tide at 13:07 pm @ 10.2 ft

folks - we are discussing combining this with the level 2 out of essex and deciding whether or not the level 2 should go given the forecast and then putting this on solo at another location. will post details later today for location, time and what you should expect. as always, check the forecast and then compare that to the location and the conditions you are likely to find and then gauge your capabilities to those criteria. the point here is to stretch some zones on folks but in the end if we find conditions that exceed what we are comfortable trying to aid instruction in, this will be cancelled. final call on that will probably be saturday morning so check the board.

with the season turning and while the air is still relatively warm and the water getting colder, maybe now would be a good time to review some fallish/winter paddling issues? i didn't even look to see if there was anything on the calendar....is there? if there is sufficient interest, i am willing to run a sng out of rockport harbor this saturday to maybe review this sort of thing. we can talk about what's in your day hatch and why. what should be in your day hatch? we can talk about getting caught out and then see what impact that day hatch has on your safety we can talk about hypothermia. that's kind of a big issue this time of year. how are you dressed, what are you wearing and do you have dry clothes with you? on water, we can review and practice different rescues, tows, etc. in the safety of the harbor and then if folks feel comfortble (and i feel comfortable taking you) we can head out a bit and maybe practice those rescues again off of straitsmouth island where the swells may be coming up a bit. rescues - t or/and x (with re-entries over the rescuers boat between / outside the boats) hand of god scoop reentry and roll with paddle float (hmmm....i don't have one, but if someone does....bring it) just this time of year brings more elements to think about so lets gather and mull em around. if there is interest and i can get some help from some folks (ahem...volunteers?) we can figure out how many may show and then decide on an appropriate beach/venue appropriate clothing for weather a must as i don't really want to be around anyone who is exposing themselves to hypothermia (sorry, don't need the excitement) so AT LEAST a full wet suit/dry top and/or drysuit. weather will cancel if winds over F3/4. even at that, we may not leave the beach area but we can still review and do the on water stuff in the relative safety of an immediate landing zone. we can review what folks want....it's kinda up to who shows and i will illustrate and instruct as i am best able. lemmeknow

yes, well, that's cause i was calm and am generally too stupid/arrogant/stubborn to be anything less than self assured. you and i were fine, we knew what we were doing and where we were going, our bailouts and had it gone a bit worse, still within our respective boundaries...and we minimized our risks within the confines of what we did and as a result of that (or good clean living - ha!) mr murphy thankfully stayed ashore that evening. just coulda been a better evening for her where the point was to just camp somehwere. no need to have stressed her out like that and i think it's important for us all to learn from our collective mistakes. just glad you were there chumly. that whole less than 3 there shall never be thing is very, very true. lots left to learn, huh?

...and lest we forget the breaking in of the craft by her nimbly and rather monkey like climbing into said boat uspside down while it was suspended from the ends! very impressive!

ciro, janis and i departed peaks too late and then made a route adjustment that ended up delaying us further. as we came out of luckse sound, it was too late in the day and against the flood. we cracked light sticks and made sure that the vhf was handy as the sun set behind us a blaze of red and pink on the portland skyline. the wind was F3/4 out of the S/SW and the swells by this point were pretty fully formed 3 and 4 footers. we crossed and went up the W side of the sound to avoid boat traffic. this was a mistake, should have gone up the E side of long to avoid the light boat traffic and use what little lee it may have offered. against the flood, janis soon tired and it was at this point, pretty full dark. threw a tow onto her bow and steamed out of luckse as quickly as able to pull her into the wind/swells and current as ciro stayed right besides her the whole way. gave the S end of cliff a WIDE berth to avoid any swells that may rear up a bit higher and maybe break and then turned us down wind/swells onto a heading for jewell. kept the tow on for the psychological value it added as the adrenalin and fear bled off after having gone up and then beam to the conditions. the problem with towing someone is that even as you get warmer and warmer from the tow, the distressed paddler is getting cooler and cooler... hit the camp site on the inside of jewell pretty directly and got janis in dry warm clothes/hat asap. got the stove on and made camp in time to enjoy the fireworks over portland as the QM2 left port. i blew the call - we left too late and while i explained everything she would see and encounter BEFORE we did, that she was on the water that late is a big failure. she was at the limit of her skills level and far outside her comfort zone. even with ciro and i being well within both of those boundaries ourselves, i didn't take the experience for her fully into consideration when we did this. i explained what we were doing, why and how we were going to deal with it, but never the less, shouldn't have put her in that spot. it was a lot to ask of anyone, much less the one you love. as i have said on numerous occassions, she is a trooper and remarkable. so consider that next time you push the boat away. even if you can handle it and can handle anything that is likely possible to happen, what's the experience going to be like for ALL of those with you and what resources do you have at your disposal in case if goes far worse than the likely worse case scenario? me? well, while too large to pack in a hatch, the ciro de la vega emergency kit comes with several of his own boats and while not available commercially, he extraordinarilly handy to have about in case things get sketchy. anyways, don't make the same lack of planning/and taking all factors into consideration mistake.

obviously some kind of genetic adaptation. a "snowshoe" that allowed your ancestors to run away from marauding packs of snowshoe hares and things like that. "what? it's only a bunny! what's it going to do? nibble me bum?" and then of course when the rabbit attacked, your ancestors fleetly ran away leaving the narrow footed english to the whims of beast. this kept the imperialistic english out of norway, scandinavia and other wicked cold places of which i have only a passing geographic idea. now, since there are no more attack bunnies (or imperialistic brits), those feet are like the coccyx...surely once important but now just a reminder of your past. good luck with the shoes, sasqua....err, bethany

you're right, it just doesn't give you enough time to work out any "kinks" uncovered by the training. and even if you did have them mostly worked out, since they just saw, reviewed and coached you on how to fix whatever problem, they are exacting in what they are looking for in the element. that's a tough one...the season isn't over though and if you just work at whatever it is, you'll nail it. what was it that was holding you back? maybe someone out there has something they found helpful in getting over the same thing? good luck!

yeee-whoooo! congrats! 3 star is a really tough one - all the strokes all picture perfect and all...boat control, knots....and mikco "gives away" nothing, nada, zip...you folks earned those badges! did you have maynard? he's almost satanic, isn't he? congrats again!

all paddlers and gear present and accounted for....so far. janis dumped the bag of big stinky gear for me and it is presently awaiting a wash on the back deck and then to be hung/dried....not too sure i remembered to grab my waldies off of the deck there in angesley...i may have contributed a pair of blue size 10 foam shoes to their efforts... once we get the photo's amassed and some thoughts to cyber paper, someone suggested that there may be enough material and interest in doing a slide presentation....thought that may be a good idea for some weekend that's too cold and miserable to paddle. what a time/place...i still can't get over what we saw and were exposed to doing there....it really is just a whole new world of options, risks, concerns and the steps to limit exposure....just a profound difference in how you need to look at the water/weather. i know you 4 went to the shetlands...is it something like that? "unabashed plug alert" tom up at mikco; pretty impressive in a boat right? the times we've all seen him up in casco or where ever...impressive? as impressive as the physical skills are of he and the other coaches in wales, the difference that is most impressive, most just outside our experiences is in the thought processes and almost prescient knowledge of seeing things on the water that we just don't see, just don't know to look for and know will happen. in putting the puzzle together. the biggest, most vast and impressive thing we were exposed to in this trip wasn't so much penwryn mawr ("pen win" and then "mawr" ryhmes with "big enough to eat a car") but is the way these folks understand their enviroment and folks in it. that's what i am walking away with - i want to understand my enviroment like that and how to get switched on to folks around me better. and that'll just carry over to everything, won't it? "plug alert off" there is just sooooo much to learn and do in boats....

when david says he is wearing 2 tops and a fleece, that's exactly what you want to do. layer your polypro. the first layer will wick away moisture from your skin (okay, perspiration) and stay "dry" as the next layer does the same till the moisture is up against the membrane of the drysuit. what you'll find is that the layer closest to you is liable to be dryer than the layer closest to the dry suit. this is because even though goretex (or whatever brand name breathable fabric of choice in your dry suit) says it breathes....yeah, better than nylon but that's no where near as much breathability as the poly and so the outside layer of poly breathes it right out to a less breathable membrane and as a result just gets wet as the goretex (or whatever) can't keep up with the osmosis (is that right, the transfer of water across a membrane, osmosis, yeah?) if you were to wear only a single layer beneath the dry suit, the "wetness" wouldn't really have anywhere to go and while the poly would keep you warm enough, it's liable to cling to you more and it can get a little cooler and distracting as you feel it in your suit. a really light layer and then layer the poly weights according to temp (water/air) and not just the air temp over that and you will be snug as the proverbial bug. make sense?

we're all back and all well! as nice as the paddling is here...the world is an awful big place and in the words of mr shakespeare..."there are more things in heaven and earth...than are dreamt of in your philosophy..." or maybe from mr buffet "if we weren't all crazy, we would go insane"? in any event, the similarities are boundless and the differences are amazing! water that moves, MOVES like a river...tidal streams scream, cliff faces rise outta the water with caves pocking the sides with ceilings high as cathedrals rising over your head as you paddle in. or some of them so low that as the swell rushes in, the air is forced out in a whoosh and then the mist follows that after the boom of the wave face hits the back....easy to think that sure, there's a dragon in there, i can see his breath and he's cetainly making a racket there in the dark... there will be pictures and eventually a proper trip report. for now, we all returned happy to have gone and humbled at what's left to be learned. if nothing else, it taught us to laugh at ourselves sometimes....

"....Do you ever get the feeling that the clean up and maintenance of the boats/gear is a lot of work?..." do i detect a less than subtle chide? play nice cookie, or no t shirt for you!

okay, i have had/used firely products (bright orange plastic generally) and then another co (red plastic, forget the name) and have had poor luck with both. and of course, since this is an item i have never had opportunity to use, to find out that they have somewhere along the line broken for no apparent good reason, this kinda upsets me. i have better things to do than spend $30 odd dollars on something that is going to break without having been used.... looking to replace my now defunct strobe so the question before you is which brand of strobe do you use, how often do you check it and what luck have you had? thanks

if it comes down to it, we've discussed excorcism. hell, we're going to be in angesley with a guy named nigel and tom is going to be there....this is akin to a holy pilgrimage...a paddling haj to bring jed back to the fold. maybe one night in the pub we can perform the sacred rituals...."demon twig, be gone! we cast you out!" or something like that and then we hoist a tastey ale. or of course we could accept that while "twigging" is different, it's just one more discipline to learn from. in keeping with the whole mock religious aspect, our own jed would be a prophet (jedidiah?) wandering, seeking knowledge and we know that he will return to his tribe with what he has seen and learned and that it just makes the tribe stronger. of course most of those guys were half nuts....hey....wait a minute....

mr luby has a team of physicians all concerned with this very predilection towards rolling about, never actually going anywhere while holding onto twigs, rocks or just having his hands behind his head. well, that and his rather pale, chicken legs... in any event, the photo bears witness to a panopoly of ailments. travel abroad has been prescribed and those of us that know and love him can only hope that his sense of euro-centric paddling can be happily and firmly restored.

off season? what is this term "off season" you keep mentioning? winter is a time of quiet. you can hear the snow fall, the slushy ice jostle about as the water slops around. you can feel in your nose how brisk the air is, the utter lack of moisture not frozen, you can smell the snow, the cold, your wooly hat....the goretex makes crisp noises and the paddle feels marvelous. you can be out on the water and feel so alone in all of that....you can see and hear the critters along the bank and the surface of the water; it's like they've come to see you to affirm that the world really is alive, that something has survived the blanket of cold too. it's like a secret you don't share with anyone, all the sweeter for the knowing that ONLY you know..... i wax romantic....but i like winter. of course, if i had a child, his/her name would be gore-tex fleece stoehrer but whatever.....

..errrr...ok, lets try that without being so quick on the send key.... the launch for fishers island we used was esker point, groton long point rd. in groton and then on sunday to play out at catumb rocks and sugar reef we used stonington borourh....it's in stonington of course but directions....yeah, you'd have to go to the connyakkers and to get them. with all the moving water ken, i think you'd love it! it really is a hoot!

hi ken

there are a few of us going over to wales in a month or so to take 5 star training with tom from mikco at nigel dennis's kayak center. one of the elements to paddling along the welsh coast where we will be going are the tremendous tidal races....huge amounts of water moving very fast around and over rocky bits that aren't good for boats and even worse for boates should something go "awry"! with this in mind, we snuck away again for a weekend down off of fishers island and around stonington to play in the fast water and bumpy bits that the flood and ebb had to offer on this weekends springs. saturday we launched and paddled the 6 miles or so out to race rock light and encountered more of what we were expecting after last months trip - fast, fast water and big, jumbly waves coming from myriad direction....and oddly, it was just as much fun! we found that if we went out to the south of race rock light and then surfed in from the north from the outside in the mayhem, we could catch some pretty nice rides! it was a blast to play in this water and use the eddy lines accordingly. one of us showed up with a strip built razor billed auk as opposed to his explorer - he was les than enthused with the boats performance in the conditions we encountered and it is a testimony to his considerable abilities that he wasn't rescue bait the entire day! the man has a brace...oh, yes he does. we played along in the race there for awhile....padlle out, maintain postion and directional control...wait for your wave....PADDLE, PADDLE, PADDLE...catch a wave and surf for a bit...it passes out from under you or dies away or you're knocked off from another bit of water and you maintain....repeat. short bursts of high output followed by maintenance to work the swells and the waves up against the current. we camped out at an rv park on saturday and woke sunday to meet up with the southern contingent again (cheri perry was along and yes, ain't she pretty impressive in that lovely little boat?) and after a bite to eat and exchanging some embarrassing stories about jed, we were off to the launch. this time our destination was napatree point and then sugar reef and chatham rocks. we initially paddled over to the lighthouse over by napatree and it was a repeat of the previous days events, paddle like hell, surf, maintain and repeat with a break into an eddy if you wanted to take the express ride back to the front of the line or got played out and tired. once we set out to sugar reef though, this all changed...there was no eddy. none...eddy had left. bye-bye. it was now essentially enter into the race, and you had to surf back up against it and really the current didn't care if you got tired and that there was no eddy. it was exhilirating and fun and we had enough folks to make it safe should anyway ditch....chatham rocks were much of the same. the weekend really set our minds at ease over playing in tidal races....we don't really encounter them here off the coast of mass to this degree and since we've never really seen any water moving like this, maybe all of our tendencies is to work it into a bit of a bogey man; and then to think about the speeds and volumes in wales? help, mommy! but this was good, we got a feel for it and understand whats going on and while whatever we encounter overseas is doubtless going to be on a bigger scale, it's just a matter of degree as opposed to something with which we've no familiarity. the weekend set our minds to ease a bit (maybe, perhaps) with something that we've been looking forward to for a long time.

small? the list is growing every day....stickers!

dang....that's a good looking boat. yeah, cheri....so she's something else! everything she did in that little sucker seemed so effortless!