Lake Lure

We finally made the trek up to Lake Lure today. It was Plan B. Plan A had been to paddle the upper Catawba River near Conover, NC. The idea was scuttled by the put-in being closed by high water from Duke Energy needing to bleed water from its reservoirs. We have wanted to go to Lake Lure since the very beginning of the year. This was the trigger. We needed a fairly easy out & back trip and I figured the lake would get more crowded as the summer kicks in.

It's a pretty reservoir, up in the mountains, and an easy 1.5 hr drive. The route via US74A/64, coming from the east, is very popular for motorcycle rides. The town has several restaurants with outdoor seating. Much better than the town of Chimney Rock, up the road a little further. We paid the $22 annual fee for each boat at the Lake Lure Marina and used their single lane boat ramp to put-in. Here's a view from the water (with a pair of blue kayaks that came in as we left):

The hills are quite nearby and have nice rock faces in spots:

We went up the Broad River, just past US74/64. We couldn't get far before the rocks blocked us. We found a small side creek that led to a retaining pond. The pond was home to scads of Canadian geese, their yung'ns, and a pair of white swans(?). The homes on the lake are a real mixed lot - some huge stone houses, some mobile homes, and lots of boat garages. On our lake, the lake-side "style" is plain old docks/decks, or roofed boat houses. The garages here were complete with wooden doors on them - kinda quaint. We also saw big turtles and a lot of swallows. There were fewer power boats than I expected on the water, so the mid-afternoon timing worked out just fine. We only went as far as where the lake tee's out to the north. Maybe that northern finger has more interesting hills and wildlife.

Look close in that upper pic above. Besides Katheen in the foreground far right, I think I've got a picture of Chimney Rock, complete with US flag flying, up in the rocks, about middle right.

We will definitely be back in the fall when the leaves are turning. Another summer trip is likely. It was rather breezy today. Hopefully, that breeze will be there when it's stagnant in the piedmont in July & August. We took NC9 south out of town. It was an easier and faster drive than coming through Rutherfordton. (Remember this for the next trip.)

Rocky Shoals Spider Lily

We made the trip to the Landsford Canal State Park near Lancaster SC today. The draw was the springtime flowering of Hymenocallis coronaria, a rare lily that grows amongst the rocks in this section of the Catawba River.

The previous week's Catawba Cruisers group paddle sounded like quite an adventure. A number of new people, fast current from all the rain, grounded boats, flipped boats, and snakes. Andy was willing to go again. Gwen, from Great Outdoor Provision Company, was organizing an afternoon paddle. So, we decided to do this short stretch twice. We were joined by Terri and her son Blake, in the morning, and Pat Long in the afternoon. This was also our first shuttle experiment. It was also our first effort to dodge rain. It's been raining ALOT lately - which is really good for relieving our extreme drought conditions, but not so good for long distance paddle trips. The storm have frequently involved thunder too, so we didn't even try to paddle Moss Lake. But this time, only lightning was going to keep us off the water. Besides, the remnants of the canal, history, and prospect for stopping at GOPC, gave us enough rain-out options to make getting out of the house worthwhile.

We drove through some rain to get there and had a couple minor misturns on the way. But we got there only 5 minutes or so after the agreed meeting time of 10am. Andy was looking at his watch when we pulled in to the rather small and crowded parking lot; but he knows we're never on time. He, Terri, & Blake were already unloaded and waiting by the river. We dropped boats and gear by the parking lot ... And then I realized I'd forgotten to bring our paddles. Doh! I've done this on local drives down the road to our neighborhood access ramp, but it was a first for a road trip. Damnation! Andy had a spare paddle, just like ours, which Kathleen borrowed. I bummed a paddle from the park rangers. Terri, Andy, and I drove to the parking lot by the take-out. Andy drove us back and parked up the road in the increasingly crowded main parking lot. This is a nice little park - it's sized for normal use, not peak use when the lilies are blooming.

The river is flat right up to the park. We paddled out and tried to follow Andy as he traversed the rocky shoals. Now, I know what rocky shoals means - it is to be taken literally. There are rocks freakin' everywhere. We scraped over bunches of them. Got caught up on bunches more. Fortunately, none of us fell out. We did get rained on. It was actually rather enjoyable. I had my [brandname] hat from ECCKF and it worked really well. No lightning, so no scramble. I also forgot my camera so I have no pictures. But here are Andy's.

The lilies are indeed beautiful, both in mass and up close. They root into dirt filled crevasses in the rocks and need occasional flooding. This is one of the largest of very few stands in the US. I'm amazed they just let canoers and kayakers come and walk amongst them. Surely, they take abuse from the foot traffic during blooming. However, they seem to be thriving and the park encourages paddlers.

We thought the afternoon trip would be different from the morning one. I thought Gwen was going to be bringing flatwater boats but his entourage was almost all whitewater craft. I also thought he was taking a different route. But, alas, it was the same one, so we just did it a second time. We stayed a little more to the middle of the river this time. (We were river right in the morning.) It was very tiring and tedious to be pushing past the rocks. The repeat pass has put us off a second trip. We may come back to see the canals and paddle up the Catawba. But, unless we get whitewater boats, I doubt we'll be scraping up the bottoms of ours again.

Paddling Everywhere, Just Not By Us

We've been kept off the water by a string of weekends with unpredictable heavy rain and thunderstorms. As the weather has warmed up, there are lots of people paddling in a variety of locations. All too distant for us to want to drive to & fro only to be rained out. I am now stir crazy and must do something. Hopefully, we won't be dodging thunderbolts. But come heck, or even high water, we're going to see the Spider Lilies at Landsford Canal State Park on the Catawba River!

Stroke Videos

Via @SeaKayakStMarys and @bryanhansel ... a selection of short video clips demonstrating a retinue of kayaking strokes.

UPDATE - May 18: Check here for animations of various paddle techniques.

ECCKF Wrap-Up

UPDATED: Apr 26 - added the pictures

Kathleen and I had a great time at the East Coast Canoe & Kayak Festival in Charleston SC. We are definitely going again. We tried to take advantage of everything available, made several on-the-fly plan changes, and had some unanticipated coordination challenges. We took our two Italian Greyhounds and rented a 1 room cottage on Folly Beach for a week. Ray and Dorothy, some paddling buddies, were going and we wanted to hook up with them. Here's what we did - commentary follows.

• Thu evening - Eastern Horizons movie
• Fri morning - sunrise paddle on Folly Creek
• Fri afternoon - lessons: Basics and Beyond the Basics
• Fri evening - Russell Farrow on Glaciers & Narwhal (Vacation from Hell)
• Sat morning - Nigel Foster demo on kayak control; Ken Fink on wind & waves
• Sat afternoon - rescue demos; vendor viewing & gear gathering; Danny Mongno on low/high angle paddling
• Sat evening - dinner ticket & traffic fiasco; late dinner; "ballet" with kayaks & canoe
• Sun morning - lessons: Combine & Refine and Support Strokes
• Sun afternoon - more vendor viewing; kayak demoing

The movie was my first exposure to top-flight sea kayaking. Beforehand, I was more leery than interested, now I can definitely see the appeal. Will, of Coastal Expeditions, led the sunrise paddle. It was a nice jaunt through a tidal marsh area. We saw a bottle-nosed dolphin. We had signed up for 3 of the 6 classes offered by H2Outfitters and ended up adding a 4th to round out their complete set on various strokes - very useful, since all of our previous stroke knowledge came from our watching DVD's not people watching us & providing feedback. H2Outfitters had a bunch of boats for the lessons. We were in Perception Sea Lions on Friday and Prijon Catalinas on Sunday. The Prijons felt very wobbly to us newbies - a good lesson to avoid hard chine boats until we're more advanced. I flipped mine while going gonzo practicing low braces - but it gave me an opportunity to try a heel re-entry seen demoed by Cathy Piffath the day before. Kathleen has gained a lot of confidence and now wants to step up from her Pungo 120. Since we didn't plan on buying a boat there, we are waiting. However, it probably won't be too long before we're looking to sell & buy. In retrospect, we regret skipping the BBQ dinner on Friday night. I salivated at Dorothy's description of the beer and others told me the food was better than Saturday's. We returned for the Vacation from Hell presentation - very interesting for capturing the on-shore experience, not nearly as much on-water shoots as in Eastern Horizons; overall, a good pairing though. On Saturday, we wanted to catch a variety of sessions. Nigel Foster is freakin' amazing in a kayak - now we know how graceful kayaks can be on flatwater. Jeff & Cathy's demo of rescues was interesting, informative, and, as already mentioned, timely. After Ken Fink's talk, we knew what a Sea Kayak Carolina staff member meant when he warned us on Monday about the fetch near the mouth of the Folly River. Danny, of Werner Paddles, was entertaining during his talk about paddling styles. Who knew that competition between paddling vendors is a trash talk sport? Actually, that was a tiny percentage of his session, he was very informative discussing technique and paddle/shaft shapes. Unfortunately, I left the dinner tickets at home and, unbeknown to us, had to fight Folly Beach Sea & Sand Festival traffic back to the cottage. I was an hour late to dinner, the crowd was thinning, and I missed Ray & Dorothy. I did have a nice, but short, chat with Steve, the Charleston Co. paddling program director, his wife, and the guy who was directing the festival. After dinner, and after bumming some bug spray, Alison Sigathy and Karen Knight were incredibly graceful in their greenland kayak and canoe respectively. After the second set of lessons and Sunday, we tried sea kayaks by Nigel Dennis, P&H, and Wilderness Systems. The Current Design folks had packed up, so we missed trying theirs.

We only missed one component this year - master classes offered by experts, but not necessarily for experts. With the basics under our belt, a season of practice, and we'll be signing up for a number of these next year. We didn't get to do any other paddles due to high winds. I look forward to paddling to the Morris Island Lighthouse next year.

Here's Kathleen at the H2Outfitter's location for on-the-water lessons.
And fellow paddlers on Folly Creek in the tidal marsh:

Consensus on Warm-Air Cold-Water Wear?

I posted a question on the Mecklenburg Regional Paddler's forum about recommendations for clothing or "behavior" when the air temperature is warm and the water temperature is not. I'd previously speculated that I'd carry a scooper and pour cold water down my shirt if I wore my current gear - an 3mm Farmer John and a 0.5mm longsleeve top (both from NRS).

The general consensus was towards a "shortie" farmer john - single piece wetsuit with mid-thigh shorts and vest-like upper. The idea was ... protect the core in the water, allow the extremities to sweat to release body heat generated by paddling in the warmer air. At the ECCKF, we'll be talking with other folks too. Stay tuned!

Practicing a Self-Rescue

After Kathleen's previous excitement, we bought a variety of extra safety gear and I got psyched to practice getting wet myself. Today, the weather was wonderful. I just had to do a bunch of yard cleanup chores before she would let me go play in the water. I enumerate here all the reasons why my experience was much easier than hers:

1. Planned
2. Calm lake
   
3. Wetsuit
4. Two float bags in the bow
5. Paddle float
   
6. Water not quite so cold
7. Watched self-rescue video beforehand
   
8. Kathleen ready to go with PFD, ropes, and backup paddle float.

As we were watching The Dolphin Eye's "Practical Kayaking" DVD, I realized that we'd never actually seen the self-rescue section. We'd only watched the buddy rescue demonstrated in Ken & Nicole Whiting's "Recreational Kayaking" DVD. Here's the spot we used. It's at the end of our neighborhood's cove; photo taken from the adjoining neighborhood's decent-sized dock.


Here's the video of the first attempt (with color commentary by Kathleen):


Here's the video of the second attempt (Yikes, I wonder if I can do anything about that dorsal still for the image preview. Thanks, YouTube, it's very flattering!):


Context for references in the videos: Andy is our friend who was with us on the South Fork. Walter & Patty are friends on the lake who came by, in one of their boats, while we were getting started.

A very fun experience. And I feel good about succeeding both times. (Afterwards, I was kicking myself for not having tried some bracing techniques to see if I could recover from a tilt.)

I did discover one thing about the kayak dress code... If you do, in fact, dress for the water temperature, you better get in the water on warm days like this, or you'll roast. I wonder if bringing a scooper and pouring water down my neoprene shirt would be the best practice. ;-)