(S)eagull watch

Last Saturday about 20 of us gathered at Lake San Antonio, about 3 hours south of the bay area, to go for a bit of a paddle and look for eagles. We saw lots of nests, but personally I only saw maybe one eagle that was flying away. But we did see plenty of seagulls!

Still, it was a nice day, temperature of 70 degrees and no wind.

No Riding, Walking or Sleeping, but did this!

Well this weekend was rather interesting. Both boys were spiking major fevers on Friday and Darth II would not sleep. Being only 2 1/2 he really has a difficult time with being sick. By Saturday Mrs Darth was also a bit under the weather. We have been buying lights and furniture the past month and I just started putting up the lights.

So here is some of what I did...

Rainy day activity

Saturday the forecast was for rain, a 6-8 ft swell, and 20-25 kt winds. Didn't sound like a good day to be outside... unless you were sea kayaking.

Four of us rode the ebb out the bay past the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. The wind was there, but more in the manageable 10-15 kt range. With the current, though, we took a pretty quick direct route a couple mile out to Point Bonita, the last point of land before getting to the wide open ocean.

We figured that making it a couple more miles around to the next beach wasn't going to happen, but we decided to poke our boats around the corner. There, we encountered the 8 ft (at least) swells that the weather forecast had called for. With the wind opposing the current out there, the swells were pretty steep, too. I was able to launch my boat over the top of one of the swells, catching air and landing with a resounding thud. Even though I was probably only about 6 inches out of the water, an 18 foot fiberglass boat makes an impressive noise when it lands.

After poking outside, we decided to turn and head back. The push that the wind and swell gave us made going against the last of the ebb easy, and the swells were steep enough to have some nice fun surfing back. After a snack on one of the beaches near the gate, we headed back into the bay and grabbed a beer at the nearby yacht club.

unmotivated

I would have liked to have done 60 minutes on the treadmill, but after 40 my oxygen was feeling pretty depleted. If I can do it regularly I hope to see a reversal of the weight velocity.

Clean Run - Almost

Well Todd might not want to ride in weather below 40 degrees, but that doesn't stop me from kayaking. Last Sunday I met up with my friend Steve to do a run on the Class III Chili Bar section of the South Fork American. As I drove down into the river valley, I noticed the little thermometer on my car descending as well. When I arrived at the meeting spot, it read 30 degrees, there was a bit of frost on the ground, and the flow report noted the water temperature was a cool 46. No, Steve wasn't going to get to try out his new short-sleeve drytop today.

The water was still really low, so we grabbed a leisurely coffee before heading up to the put-in. As we were getting ready, the water started coming up right on cue. Shortly after putting on, Steve rolled while playing around and suffered an ice-cream headache. It was a good day to try to do a clean run-- the whole run without a single roll.

We started down, soon coming along Meatgrinder, a quarter-mile field of boulders that's the first major rapid of the run. I was a bit jittery going down it, partly because the flow was still pretty low, exposing more rocks, and partly because I had never paddled in such a small group. But we made it through the rapid easily, and I quickly settled down.

After cruising down a ways, we came upon Maya, one of the best play spots on the run. We stopped for a while, each surfing the wave there a half-dozen times. Both of us had little playboats designed to do all sorts of cool tricks, but neither of us was up to doing anything that could result in a dunking. We kept our heads dry and remained satisfied with some plain-vanilla front-surfing, cutting back and forth across the wave.

On our way down the river, we saw something orange floating in the water. Hmm, someone lose a helmet? It was going pretty fast, so it took a while for us to catch up. The object turned out to be a basketball. Ah the jokes we could have entertained ourselves with had it been a Wilson.

I thought ahead to Troublemaker. It usually hadn't been a problem for me, but I still hadn't managed to run it upright in the new playboat. But I was feeling pretty good about the run so far. I commented to Steve that all I have to do is make it through Troublemaker and I'd have a clean run. Bad idea. As soon as I said something, I started approaching a little nondescript hole. Too lazy to sprint around it, I dropped right into the middle, figuring I'd just punch through it. Nope. So much for the clean run.

We then approached Troublemaker and got out to scout it. The first hole in the rapid looked trashy. Definitely not the place to be. The first choice was to go through the narrow passage to the right of the hole and over a little drop, hoping that there weren't shallow rocks at the bottom to get tangled on. The other choice was to go left into an easy-to-catch eddy. The hard part was getting out of the eddy and back over to the right, because on the left, there was another nasty-looking hole further down the rapid. Neither of us figured we'd have enough speed to do the ferry, so we decided to go right.

Steve headed down first while I sat in my boat on the shore. I saw him go down the first drop, then lost sight of him behind a nearby rock. It looked like he had gone a little far left. I thought maybe he decided at the last minute to catch the eddy on the left instead. He emerged after a while, and I saw his head bobbing down the lower part of the rapid. Something looked a little off, but I didn't realize he was out of his boat until he clambered up onto the rocks. Steve must have gotten caught in the nasty hole at the top.

I jumped out of my boat to get a view of the hole to see if his boat was still there. From the opposite bank, Steve signaled that he was ok and for me to get back in my boat and paddle. So now I was supposed to run the rapid that Steve just got trashed in?? I thought for a moment about walking around it, which I had done before after a trashing, but something made me decide to go for it.

As I walked back to my boat, I took a last good look at the rocks at the top of the rapid. I knew I'd have to go far right to avoid the same fate as Steve's. As soon as I launched, I kept my eyes on the rocks and paddled right toward them. In fact, I got a little too close. I brushed a rock above the drop and got spun sideways a little. I then went down the drop completely sideways. Not the best thing to do, but I was relieved to hit a soft pillow of water and not a jagged rock or a nasty seam of water ready to flip me. The hardest part over, I continued down the rapid to where Steve was.

Steve said his boat was probably at the Coloma bridge by now, a couple hundred yards down. I started sprinting the flatwater to chase it down. Arriving at the bridge, I saw no sign of the boat. Just past the bridge, there were a few people on shore who didn't look panicked but looked like they may have just seen something interesting. I started paddling over there, thinking I'd casually ask if they had seen an empty red kayak floating down the river, as if I were asking them if they had any Grey Poupon.

But just then I saw the boat another 100 yards or so downstream. It had made its way into the shallows and got hung up on some rocks. I paddled toward it, bulldozed it with my boat, and freed it, only to have it get caught up again. This time I was downstream of the boat, unable to get back up to do anything meaningful with it. Time to head to shore and walk back upstream.

I found a landing spot and ran upstream along the trail and then started out through some brambles toward the boat. About that time, I saw the boat had been freed by some other boaters coming down, so I ran back downstream to retrieve it. One of the boaters got is towline on it. Another handed me a throw rope, which I discovered had come out of Steve's boat. I walked out into the river to retrieve the boat. By this time, Steve had made it down. We got everything in order and started down the last little Class II section before the takeout.

Steve filled me in on what happened. He was worried about hitting the rocks on the right, so he went a little bit left-- just enough to hit the corner of the nasty hole and get sucked in. He got flipped 5 times in the hole, but it wouldn't let go. After running out of breath, he popped out of the boat but managed to hold onto it. The empty boat started flushing out of the hole, and he hung on, figuring it was his ticket out, but the hole pulled him back with so much force he wasn't able to hold on. After getting recirculated a couple times, he finally flushed out and made it to shore.

He also reminded me that it was his very first swim in the river and that he always said that the longer he went without swimming, the worse it would be!

3 mph

I am cranky. Winter seems to have set up permanent residence,obviously working as part of the Illuminati with the gas companies to keep my finances tight as my belly gets giggly from the carb cravings induced by the cold and dark. Alas I have not felt like spinning and time has crunched but today I overcame inertia and plodded on the moving black strip for 40 minutes and 2 miles.

I am still a biker and I am counting on that as I am an inefficient walker/jogger so I should be able to burn some calories on the dark ribbon that causes my shoes to leave small markings on the impractically colored light beige carpet.

It does feel good to have done 'something today' and my near perfect wife crock potted dinner so I will have it and it will be warm and tasty upon return from 2ND job tonight.

Indoor Riding Increase

Well since it has been in the negative temps now for a while there is NO WAY I would ride outside. Actually if it is below 40 I am not too excited about outside riding.

I have been riding my bike inside 5-6 times per week and mainly riding 40 Minutes AND 10 Miles which ever comes last. Now I have upped the time to 50 Minutes and 11 Miles giving me a longer cool down period. My hope is in the next few weeks to be able to ride a full hour 5-6 times a week and one day a week over that hour. Currently by the time I reach the 50 minute mark I am a little saddle sore. The new channel seat prevents any numbing, but since I have no butt the seat is taking more time to get used to. Once I reach that 60 minute mark I plan on increasing the mileage and sticking with the time. For me to get more then an hour more then one day a week would be very difficult. I think the hour is about all I could get 5-6 times a week. I do also plan on certain days when I am less busy with work to possible hit the bike two times to give my self some more change.

Here is to 50 minute rides working on 60...

Ride On!!!!

Changes to the Blog Format

Well I have changed the over all format of the blog and may be making some other changes soon. My goal is to make it easier to read and use all the new functions of the upgraded blogger. I feel the white text background helps with reading the blog and improves the over all look.

I know with the weather being so cold there has been very little to say so this time is as good as any for upgrades and updates...

Ride On!!!