PeterB

Plates and bowl are mine. Sorry to contribute to party backwash (sake and sugar-induced forgetfulness, no doubt ...) I'll grab them from you whenever convenient (pool session, whenever). Peter

I'd like to go out on Saturday. I was thinking of the Portsmouth area, launch from Pepperell Cove or Fort Foster, circumnavigate Gerrish Island (a favorite outing of mine), a semi-relaxed trip through Chauncy Creek , possible surf at the mouth of lovely Brave Boat harbor. Outing would have to be planned around high tide (@ 12:45PM) as the back side of Gerrish/Cutts Island is only navigable for @ 50 minutes on either side of high tide. Anyone else interested ?

From N.E. Aquarium Press Dept., Wednesday:

Last night, a 350 pound, five foot long leatherback turtle was brought into the Rescue and Rehab area in the basement of the Aquarium. This is an historic event for us. I believe that we have not had a live leatherback turtle in the Aquarium building in over 30 years. This large turtle was rescued from a beach in Dennis on the north side of the Cape after stranding there two days in a row. She is very inactive and lethargic

For those unfamiliar with leatherbacks, they are the world's largest turtle with some adults reaching over one ton. They are critically endangered, and their primary habitat is the open ocean. Given the distance that they are normally from coasts, strandings of even dead animals are rare. There have been about six live strandings on the Cape over the past 25 years and all of those animals but one were near death usually from injury due to boat strike or fishing gear entanglement.

This animal does not have any obvious trauma. Animal Health and Rescue staff are caring for the animal by providing extensive fluids as well as antibiotics. Further evaluations and procedures are occurring throughout the day. This turtle is critically ill.

The other great challenge in caring for this animal will be managing her behavior. Since these sea turtles are pelagic, they have a long history of having great difficulty adjusting to the concept of a barrier as in the edge of a tank. This turtle is currently being treated out of the water. Our fishes curator Steve Bailey has only seen one adult leatherback successfully kept in an aquarium setting and that was in a large Japanese facility. A Florida sea turtle biologist who is speaking at next Monday's Lowell Lecture has successfully rehabilitated a leatherback adult.

Rescue & Rehab staff understand everyone's fascination with this animal, but they have requested that only staff who are dealing directly with the turtle come in to the rescue area to see it. The Communications Department has collected extensive still and video images of the turtle. We will be posting many of these on the web.

“A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drown’d, for he will be going out on a day that he shouldn’t, instead of lounging about inside, eating all day. But we do not be afraid of lounging about inside, eating all day, so we only do be drown’d now and again…”

(vulgarization of well-worn) Irish proverb

It had been indicated that the Nigel foster surf classes will be in great demand, and also the wording of the post about the class seemed to indicate that one could sign up for both classes. (Possibly ambiguous wording, but): If there aren’t too many applicants or if everybody's only ssigning up for one or the other this would, of course, be a non-issue , but if there are too many applicants, it would seem that someone signing up for both classes would have an unfair advantage in getting a spot.

IMHO

Peter

I appreciate everyone’s comments on the relationship, or lack thereof, between rolling & foot pegs.

To clarify two things: By adjusting my foot pegs forward, I meant that I moved them away from the cockpit, not towards.

Also, I hadn’t meant to say that this adjustment of foot pegs affected the action in my feet. It wasn’t like ”wow, now that my foot pegs are farther forward I can push off with my feet better, so I can roll more easily.” I was not aware of using my feet to push off at all, before or after foot peg adjustment ; in fact I couldn’t really feel any change that I could identify, just a mysterious sudden ease in rolling upon adjusting foot pegs , which I suspect was due to the unlocking of my hips. I think the best interpretation of my situation was by Sir Luby: that “sympathetic tension{due to foot pegs positioned too far aft} was effectively taking {my} hip flexion out of the equation”. To me, it would stand to reason that since there are five points of contact with one' s boat (feet, pelvis/butt and and thighs ) that improper position of two of them would negatively affect any aspect of boat control, rolling and otherwise.

As an aside:

Being a thirty nine year old male (the age I have been for at least a decade ) I do not have great hip flexibility, but all of this has caused me to reflect on the how much more flexible I feel than a year ago as a result of all this kayak-borne exercise . I still have a ways to go, but in general I am reminded of a quotation which could readily be applied to the beneficial effects of sea kayaking on a not-so-young male:

“I do not find that I grow any older. Being arrived at

seventy, and considering that traveling further on the same road I should probably be led to the grave, I stopped short, turned about, and walked back again, which having done these past four years, you may now call me sixty six. Advise old friends of yours to follow my example; keep up your spirits, and that will keep up your bodies.”

-Benjamin Franklin

For several weeks I had been having a bit of difficulty rolling my boat (Chatham 16); I could feel that I wasn’t initiating good hip and/or leg action for some some mysterious reason; hips felt strangely paralyzed . Well, last week I adjusted my foot pegs forward for a seemingly unrelated reason (although my legs felt comfortable in their knees-bent position, they were cramping and falling asleep on me) and, immediately , I was rolling much more easily.

Nigel Foster had advised that that ones foot pegs should be positioned such that with knees bent and thighs braced against one’s boat, the balls of one’s feet have firm contact with the pegs, and with legs extended (as if to stretch them out) the heels will contact the pegs. I realized that my footpegs were positioned too far aft.

Given this instant improvement upon adjusting my pegs, I must suspect that footpeg position plays a more significant role in rolling that I would have thought. If this is indeed the case (please chime in, you rolling gurus out there) it would suggest that attention to foot peg position (and general cockpit outfitting etc) would be an advisable as a matter of course to instructors and mentors involved in rolling practice, classes etc.

If anyone responds to this, please try to leave out the second, third and twenty first letter of the alphabet, lest this innocent posting should metastasize into another endless thread featuring the airing of personal vendettas,, self-congratulatoory diatribes and cirriculum vitae, hand-wringing metaphysical musings, and general bad kharma…