Translate

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Top 10 paddles of 2011 - #3

Turquoise waters

On August 21 Clyde, Gary, Gerard, Hazen and I had a paddle out of Middle Cove and explored a slew of caves between there and Torbay. Middle Cove is my favourite place on the whole Earth so its always a pleasure to paddle there. One of the highlights on our paddle were the large number of caves. The original post with more shots are here.

Outer Cove

We passed Ship Cove and the point on our way over to Outer Cove. Clyde lost his tow rope so we backtracked looking for it.

Middle Cove

We were quickly back in Middle Cove and decided to paddle over to Torbay.

Exit

There we explored some more caves.

Outlook

Getting right in there so to speak.

More caves

LinkLots of caves have been carved by the sea out of the towering cliffs.

Playing at Motion

Returning to Middle Cove we stopped to catch some surf rides as the swell washed over the rocks at Motion. While the caves were a highlight, what happened here was what made the day for me.

I got a bit too close to the surge as it reared up over the rocks. I braced aggressively into the water, had a bumpy ride sideways for a few seconds, went over and continued my sideways ride underwater. The force of the water tried to suck me out of the kayak as I used more pressure on the thigh braces to keep myself in the boat. After some distance the energy in the water was spent, I setup and made my first combat roll. More on the experience here.

After practicing many, many rolls it was gratifying to get my first combat roll versus a panic grab to release the sprayskirt. For that reason, I'm making this paddle my top 3 paddle of the year.

No comments:

Post a Comment