First and Second Paddles of Spring

The beginning of spring is bookended this year in a right before and right after the Equinox paddles. I had not yet been released by the doctor to bike but no one said I couldn't sit in a boat for a couple of hours!

 Friday March 15 my friend Kat and I went out for a two hour paddle on a local reservoir, Occcoquan, that is convenient and generally calm even on windy days. The air temp was low 60s and water temp 46.3 per NOAA. We found the resevoir windy lightly choppy and "filled" with crew boats. While the sculls don't throw up much of a wake the jon boats accompanying them do. So it was tricky with the wakes crossing and bouncing off the close shores. There fore I took only a couple of photos and no front shot of my buddy. We managed about 5 miles in a couple of hours all while dodging sculls, jon boats, and weird wakes. All in all, a satisfactory day.

Two sculls, filled with student rowers

Scull and jon boat

Kat

March 23rd a few members of my club met to paddle Pohick Bay on the Potomac and explore one of the creeks feeding into it. We found the bay windy and choppy, a nice place to stretch after a winter out of our boats. The locale is often over run by the power boat and jetski (PWC) crowd. But in the cold weather, not so much. We saw one jet ski on shore but after fighting to start his craft for 20 minutes or so he gave up and drove away. As the car-top launch is also used by the PWC, the weather and temp will dictate whether we even put in here, or not. The car top launch is a rocky pebble beach, better than a concrete ramp, for sure.

We had to fight into the wind to cross the bay, definitely more than a 8 miles per hour as estimated by the weather service. The tide was still rising  and we got stuck in muck several times working our way back to the creek, but once there found the water clear and several feet deep. The creek's current was surprisingly strong as we pushed into it.

Ourselves, we had both brought our glass composite boats, but should have probably brought out plastic. While I managed to avoid scratching mine I would have been more enthusiastic about pushing past the downed trees if I had been in the Elias. As it was, I caught a convenient eddy up in the creek and hung out there. I managed to get some nice single shots of my buddies as they navigated around several downed trees and some little ripples.

the Lorax gearing up

Into the creek

and under some downed trees

Scott 

Jesse uses a Greenland paddle

James, the Lorax

Crossing back we skirted the mucky center of the bay and paddled along a channel carved along the edge, most likely by jon boats.

Two nice paddles. The first I had some hip pain on, but the second I only began to feel a little discomfort in the last few minutes as we got back to the launch. I am pretty happy with that as we were out 2.5 hours and before the surgeries I would have been unable to sit for more than an hour with out really suffering. Not that I didn't just "grin and bear it," but it's nice not to have to.

Happy paddling!