a three hour tour
the weather started getting rough
the tiny ship was tossed
if not for the courage of the fearless crew
the kayak would be lost
the kayak would be lost
Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad. On Saturday night, Sheila and I went out to the Too Cool race to help out. We spent the night waiting for teams to coming into the Transition Area (TA) to give them the next leg, and to check their gear before they headed out again. The teams finished with a 10 mile paddle leg on Lake Sommerville. We set out at 8 am, when all the teams were back to pick up the checkpoints.
The lake was very calm as we set out with our map. But no compass. Yep, two experienced adventure racers, but not, however, navigators, set out to find CPs without a compass. No problem, we thought. We'll use landscape features.
The lake was a bit foggy, but cleared up really quickly. As we left the beach, we noticed a line on the water. It was the wind. Which just got stronger and stronger and stronger. By 10, it was sustained at around 30 mph. Not ideal paddling weather.
A compass would have been useful. We didn't really know the scale of the map as it related to the features around us. And, it turns out, we are much faster paddlers than we thought. What that means, is that we nearly paddled off the map on our way to the first checkpoint. Once we determined where we were, we set out for a different CP, and found it very quickly. So, into the wind we headed to get the one we missed. But we made another mistake and our bearing was totally off (that compass would have been really handy) and we crossed all the way over the lake, taking on water from the big waves, and completely exhausting ourselves.
It took a little while to figure out where we were when we didn't find the CP on the island we expected it to be one. Instead, we stumbled on the third CP. From there, we were back on track. The last four CPs were navigated to perfectly, in spite of the crazy water and waves.
As usual, we learned something from our six hour tour around the lake. 1. Take a compass if you plan to navigate. 2. Understand the scale of the map. 3. Wear waterproof sunscreen when paddling. 4. Nothing is better after paddling for 6 hours than Texas BBQ.
the tiny ship was tossed
if not for the courage of the fearless crew
the kayak would be lost
the kayak would be lost
Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad. On Saturday night, Sheila and I went out to the Too Cool race to help out. We spent the night waiting for teams to coming into the Transition Area (TA) to give them the next leg, and to check their gear before they headed out again. The teams finished with a 10 mile paddle leg on Lake Sommerville. We set out at 8 am, when all the teams were back to pick up the checkpoints.
The lake was very calm as we set out with our map. But no compass. Yep, two experienced adventure racers, but not, however, navigators, set out to find CPs without a compass. No problem, we thought. We'll use landscape features.
The lake was a bit foggy, but cleared up really quickly. As we left the beach, we noticed a line on the water. It was the wind. Which just got stronger and stronger and stronger. By 10, it was sustained at around 30 mph. Not ideal paddling weather.
A compass would have been useful. We didn't really know the scale of the map as it related to the features around us. And, it turns out, we are much faster paddlers than we thought. What that means, is that we nearly paddled off the map on our way to the first checkpoint. Once we determined where we were, we set out for a different CP, and found it very quickly. So, into the wind we headed to get the one we missed. But we made another mistake and our bearing was totally off (that compass would have been really handy) and we crossed all the way over the lake, taking on water from the big waves, and completely exhausting ourselves.
It took a little while to figure out where we were when we didn't find the CP on the island we expected it to be one. Instead, we stumbled on the third CP. From there, we were back on track. The last four CPs were navigated to perfectly, in spite of the crazy water and waves.
As usual, we learned something from our six hour tour around the lake. 1. Take a compass if you plan to navigate. 2. Understand the scale of the map. 3. Wear waterproof sunscreen when paddling. 4. Nothing is better after paddling for 6 hours than Texas BBQ.
posted by little b @ 7:01 a.m.
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