Dean waits patiently in the rain I loaded the boat yesterday evening for our regular St. Philips practice in a torrential downpour. I wondered about my sanity.
When I got to the harbour Dean was there and I smiled to myself. Someone on the same wavelength I thought. Dean said his daughter was incredulous that he was going paddling in the hard rain but as he explained, he was wearing a drysuit and intended to get wet anyway. So there were two of us.
Chasing the gulls Out in the cove we did some rolls and were paddling about when all of a sudden, what I thought was a small breaking wave, turned out to be the exhaling of a whale only a half dozen meters away. It surfaced a number of times but I couldn't get the money shot.
The gulls seemed to be feeding on the same food source as the whale so we paddled to where the gulls were hoping to catch a glimpse of the whale again, which we did, again it eluded the camera.
Upright again We went back to rolling and paddle drills. I snapped this shot of Dean just finishing a roll as I was coming up from a hand roll. OK, I'm kidding; be a great story if it were true though! I tried the camera on the diagonal to get this shot for interest sake.
How hard did it rain? It rained so hard that the runoff turned the normally clean river to brown. This is where we normally wash the saltwater out of our gear and we did again last night but traded the salt for silt. No matter, it'll wash out the next use.
Dean and I went for coffee at By the Beach Restaurant where the girls who served us excitedly asked us about the whale. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a picture but it was still a great sighting and an interesting Thursday evening practice.
Wouldn't the song "Fool in the Rain" by Led Zeppelin be more appropriate for a blog entry title? (Just kidding) I contemplated dragging the boat and gear out but when the thermometer read 7 degrees, the wind was from the North and the rain began to fall, I made a conscious decision to stay home and work on the new boat!! Besides, it's freakin JULY - there's no way the weather should've been like this!!
ReplyDeleteSean, I wore my HH heavy polypro (top and bottom), which I what I normally wear in spring and fall when it is colder. Even with the neoprene gloves my hands go cold enough that I was lacking dexterity when loading the gear back on the car. During coffee time I had pins and needles in my thumb and fore-finger on my right hand as it warmed up... ahhh, nice middle of July weather in Newfoundland... would not trade it....
ReplyDeleteWell Sean, ya missed a good one but you still did kayak stuff so you're excused *lol*. I too wore my neoprene mitts and while my hands were a bit cool I didn't have the problem Dean did. I really, really enjoyed it as I look forward to Thursday evenings each week. Its one day when I know i'm going to paddle come hell or high water.
ReplyDeleteTony :-)