Rough water weekend

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, here's a 3,000-word story:

Rainy day paddle

The forecast today was rain and waves. So as soon as the kids left for school, we packed up and headed to Montrose beach to paddle with Scott Fairty. This wasn't supposed to be a paddling day, but you don't just let 2- to 4-foot waves get away unsurfed.

Guess which car is ours.

Synchonized paddling?

The waves were rolling in nicely at the beach, but the area just north was chaos. Waves were hitting the "sheet piling" (shoreline retaining walls) and bouncing back, creating surf in both directions and at times meeting and combining to create waves twice as large.

Going....

Going...

Gone!

Waves like these can be intimidating. They may be more of a challenge to your confidence than they are to your skills.
Paddling in conditions like these, we realize how well our kayaks handle chaotic waves if we let them. Sometimes we just bob around in confused conditions without bracing to see how little we really need to do. But today, some bracing was necessary.
Forecast for tomorrow:

See you tomorrow, Scott?

Sharon out to sea.

Rough water rescue practice

North winds at last! The forecast was 3- to 5-foot waves, so we hastened to the lake. This time we wore drysuits, only to find that some of the surface water had returned and the water was relative balmy--somewhere in the mid-60s.
We love practicing rescues, but don't often have an opportunity to try them in the conditions in which we're most likely to need them. (Especially this year, when we've had very few big wave days.) So we took turns putting each other and ourselves back in our boats.

Alec and Hannah complete a t-rescue.

Alec completes a scramble (cowboy) self-rescue.

Every time we do this, we are struck by how well these rescues work in conditions, but how essential it is to move quickly and hold on to everything (boats, paddles, people). We typically teach rescues in calm conditions in which paddlers are unlikely to capsize and try to convince our students that in real conditions, any lapse of attention can lead to serious complications. If the rescuer lets go of the casualty's boat, it can whip away in the wind. If the casualty lets go of his or her boat or the rescuer's deck lines, they can quickly be separated. If anybody lets go of a paddle, they may never see it again. Working on rescues in real conditions is the best test of your technique.