Scratch that last statement about the Sirocco

Today I had two epiphanies about my Sirocco.

A preface first: Friday morning I had lifted my arms to braid my hair and I felt something in the left shoulder catch. I couldn't raise it or lower it. I ended up pulling the arm up with my other hand and felt a massive "pop" and incredible pain swept all over, like an electric shock, down to my toes even. My eyes teared up and I briefly thought I was going to either fall down, or barf, or both. This morning I woke up and had almost no pain. Elation!

Also Friday, before a giant sucking sound was heard from my wallet during a dental appointment, I took the Sirocco out to practice ruddering and braces. I am a bit fond of the boat. I have gotten comfortable laying the boat over and gently righting it, using a low brace, without jerking it or feeling alarmed by the lack of push-back.

Then, with an eye towards that class next weekend, I took it out into the windy chop of Belmont Bay today, with my husband in his Gulfstream. I remembered how well it handled the rollers down in the Keys. And it did again. But with a more discerning eye today I realized that while it climbs rollers well, when one turns the boat around and the seas are "following," that great performance disappears. The swells sweep around the boat, not lifting it or allowing one to "catch the wave," the way my Necky Elias does.

Instead, the boat was constantly working to turn broad beam to the waves. I think most boats will try to do that anyway more or less. The Sirocco is a long and heavy boat, turning it back straight took a lot of work. Ah so. Turning the shorter lighter Eli back takes a stroke or two at most. I want to take the best boat for the class. I worry if I am working so hard to keep the boat going straight that I will have less opportunity to learn the other skills I will be offered.

Leaving the water today I was already leaning away from taking the Sirocco. James helped me carry the boat over to the car and nestle it into the Hullavator cradles. I tied it down and then started lifting it. The Hullavator doesn't pop up with the Sirocco in the cradles, it is too heavy. So I have to lift the boat up on my fore arms, and then change the position of my hands half way up and continue lifting the boat. That's when I had the second epiphany: My left shoulder was struck by searing pain. Holy cow! I thought back, oh my goodness...my shoulder started getting *really* bad right after I bought this really heavy boat.

The Solstice weighs 48 pounds per the Current Designs website. That boat pops up in the Hullavator cradles so fast and easy it's disconcerting. Almost as though the boat is going to keep right on going, catapulting away. The Eli goes up with a bit more work, it weighs 56 pounds per the Necky website. Now, the CD website says the Sirocco only weighs 60 pounds. I just don't believe it. The Eli feels at least 10 pounds lighter, both in my hands and on the Hullavator, than the Sirocco. Brian suggested it would be worth weighing my boat sometime. I think my bathroom scales and I have a date with my boats. More on that to follow.

Birds in Florida, 1st Keys trip and Calusa Blueway

This post will mainly be photos. I will try to avoid posting photos that appeared in other blogs but frankly, one or two are just too cute to pass up another showing. If a picture speaks a thousand words then I'll just let them do their jobs.

The above five photos were shot during my first trip to the Keys. I was not focused on the wildlife so I really didn't take that many shots of birds. So that's the best of them. The Nikon wasn't so healthy, I'm pretty grateful for what I got.

The group above was from the Calusa Blueway circuit. As you can tell from the last few photos, my companions were doing the same thing I was, watching birds and snapping shots. Of course the camera wasn't cooperating, so again, grateful to whatever forces grant a bird watcher a few good shots.

Calusa Blueway Trip Report Part 1

First off, props to Bill and Mary Burnham. If you are looking for an all inclusive guided trip in the Florida Everglades or Keys and Barrier islands I can not more highly recommend the Burnhams. Their knowledge of the area, tides, lodging, and weather is solid. And they cook smashing food! They even managed to provide me, the gluten-adverse, and James (no raw tomatoes) with plenty of yummy food. http://www.burnhamguides.com/

Mary

Bill

Mary and Bill below (with Jaclin) while making us lunch. It seems like this is the day they made the best tuna salad I have ever eaten!

Now for the trip: We left icy nasty Northern Virginia at about 8 pm Wednesday 1/29/14. We drove until about midnight, stayed at a Days Inn (I think, I was pretty torched). We drove the rest of the trip starting at 07:00 the next morning after (free) breakfast at the hotel. That night we were booked at the Bokeelia cabins that were conveniently located at the launch site. http://tropicstaradventures.com/

We finished our 1100 miles journey at about 8 pm. Whew.

We were to meet our group and guides at 10 am on 1/31/14 at the launch. 

We started packing and discarding items from our kits at 6 am. Mary had sent us a list of suggested items and said to use a 20 liter dry bag for clothes and a 5 liter for cosmetics. They provide the bags but we had our own and didn't use any of theirs. We brought our own camping stuff, tent, sleeping pads, etc, as well. We also had one 5 liter dry bag of electronic stuff chargers, batteries, head lamps. And I had to carry a 5 liter bag of meds and personal stuff that is kind of unmentionable but goes along with my chronic health issues.

Jaclin launching, and others preparing to carry the fully loaded boats down. We used four or more people to carry each boat. The Burnhams have worked out a system to move the fully loaded boats without damaging them.

The Burnhams can provide boats but we brought our own. Myself I brought my Current Design Solstice GTS and James brought his Point 65N XO 16. We put our deck bags on and stuffed the heck out of our boats. We each received a full 10 liter water bag (dromedary) to carry for the group. As well, I received a package of frozen shrimp which I tossed up fore of my foot pegs and James stowed group cook ware. 

It was cool and rainy when we launched. We paddled out of Bokeelia and on to Cayo Costa Island (Cayo Costa State Park) where we had a two night stay booked in a pair of primitive cabins and two campsites. The water was a bit rough so I didn't take many photos of the start of our journey.

James

Myself right after launch

Right from the beginning my camera acted up. This Nikon Coolpix AW100 is toast. It was at one time water proof but the gasket around the battery/card slots now lets a slight amount of water in. I had planned ahead and brought 60 1 gram silica packs. I stowed the camera in a clear dry bag with 5 new packs each night. In the morning it would be dry but inevitably I would either drop the camera in the water or take a good splash up over the deck and poof, the camera would be fogged up inside again. From today on, I have no water proof camera. It either stays in a dry bag designed for cameras or I just don't carry one. Sadly, this must be. Eventually I will be able to replace it but I am fund-less until at least  April. I must pay to play and so sadly, must return to my desk at the cat hospital in order to buy new gadgets and just be on the water, in general.

But enough of that, the trip report awaits! Ah, birds...This is very front and center for me. I paint and use photos I have taken to assist me in recreating the beautiful bird life I have witnessed. Birds are dear to my heart.

Yellow Crowned Night Heron seen with in five minutes of the group launching

ubiquitous selfie...

 We stopped for a lunch break on a tiny mangrove island half-way to Cayo Costa.

Kind of rough landing amongst the mangroves. There is a technique to landing on barely existent beach among mangroves, which I had to learn, and would serve me well on the 6 day trip

As I said, the water was a bit rough and the camera, not so good

Approaching the beach where we would be camping

The water went from a dark gray blue in the Pine Island Sound to an amazing opaque turquoise-green as we passed on to the Gulf side of Cayo Costa Island. As the water was rough it was wasn't clear as it would be on following days. The beach was soft sand, a big difference from the Keys that I had paddled a mere three weeks ago. We set up our tent in the site next to the Burnhams, opting to sleep together rather in the gender assigned group cabins.

The next morning dawned cloudy but warmer and with quiet winds.

Nice collection of high end boats. Current Design was well represented with the largest number of boats under their brand.

I had an embarrassing episode the night before where in my 2 liter dry bag holding my actual meds, antihistamines, you name it, had gone missing. It had worked its way into the long nose of my "Dragon" boat and was not visible to myself, nor the three other people who looked. Dork. Bill saved "the day" when he reached his long long arm all the way into the boat and was just able to feel it and snake it out. So the next morning I put the one tiny dry bag in a larger clear 5 L dry bag which I would then carry with me for the duration of the trip. I put the long bright green Hawaii lanyard on it, both to make it easy to see and easy to carry on my shoulder, almost like a hand bag. If one really gets to know me, one of the first conclusions reached will be that I love bags, bags of all sorts. So it was comical to me to be forced to carry this dry bag as a purse. You can see the 5 L bag I mention on the deck of my boat above. Really embarrassed myself, but now it's just comical.

We were sight seers this day. We had a base camp and a group of us, minus Mary, paddled out in the after noon to explore Cayo Costa. It was an interesting trip. At one point we portaged over the island from the Gulf side to a static lagoon on the other side. From there we paddled out into the Pine Island Sound and back around to our campsite, about a 13 mile circuit. We had a nice dinner and fire with s'mores. We headed back to camp to police our stuff for the early morning take down and launch.

James

Who you chose to travel with can make all the difference in the world

Below I want to feature some of the best shots I got of each paddler. I liked every single person. It was easy as we all paddle with the same club (using meetup as our scheduling base, the Washington Kayak Club) of kayak-junkies in the WDC area. Some of us are the "usual suspects" as Brian calls us, and one or two of us are newer paddlers who are both intrepid and strong.

Bill started saying we are the "swingers' kayak club" which has a ring to it. Maybe I should swipe that idea? (insert mad giggling) It would certainly stir things up! This came out of a discussion about "river husbands" and also the fact that we have little shame when dressing, etc. When one is taking wet suits off in a parking lot in front of the same people over and over, one does tend to lose whatever modesty and/or body shame one had to start with. And let's face it, wet suits leave very little to the imagination in the first place.

First our guides:

Bill serving up dinner

Mary, actually I had a hard time catching either one of these hard working folks being still, so I don't have many good shots of either of them

Mary and Bill -- Looking over a chart

Mary and Pete

Starting with Pete, who got this trip together:

Pete brought his Epic, of course. (tease) Always calm and rather good at communication, Pete is a fine trip leader.

Becky, well known and beloved by many of us! Who can say one bad thing about Becky? Really?? Always the cheer leader, Becky's wonderful to be around. Along with Sid, she was paddling one of the Burnham's work horse boats and there fore was carrying the lion's share of the community kit. Way to go, Becky!

Lisa, hyper-competitive, always out front, was paddling a 10 year old CD Solstice GT owned by the Burnhams. Lisa is kind and generous, and always game for a challenge. James was quite smitten by the boat she was paddling,  btw!

This is frankly, one of my favorite shots from the trip

Sid is rather new to paddling. He was paddling the Burnhams' Viking kayak. The same boat the Burnhams' guide Joel described as having "a rotten bottom." It did rather start to de-laminate on this trip. None-the-less Sid pushed the heavily loaded draft horse to competitive speed, once even catching up with Pete and Lisa out front. Way to go, Sid!! Really! I rather was impressed by him, and he was the "best aged" of our group, beating out every other contender by about 10 years.

Following Sid through mangroves

Jaclin is also rather new to paddling. She became serious about it last year (2013) and has taken lessons as well as buying several boats while in the process of finding the "right one" for herself. She was paddling the Burnhams' Impex Force Cat 3. She was rather smitten with the boat and said she was going to re-think her plan to build a CLC (wood boat). She is a strong paddler who is pushing herself into new territory. She was lovely to paddle with, and we had many conversations about gear.

Becky and Jaci

Here's James (the Lorax) monkeying around on his boat. Brian Stevens challenged us to sit on our back decks while paddling last year during a class. Since then we have both taken to regularly paddling this way. While it looks goofy, one will learn quite a lot about balance while trying to maintain a seat this way.

Lastly, myself, the opinionated paddle bum, organizer, gear head. Quite the "Chatty Cathy" I was teased about my chatter several times during the trip. Often though, I find myself paddling quietly for hours. On the water is where I do most of my deep thinking.

Becky's shot of James and I cruising back to Bokeelia and the take-out.

And below, our boats. By no means bit players in this tale, each boat had its own "personality" and story.

You've probably figured out I am quite smitten with my Solstice. She really is a fine expedition boat. With 80 pounds of gear loaded in her she handled with amazingly good manners. Bringing this boat was a fantastically smart decision on my part.