Usually on Sundays a few of us get together to go for a paddle somewhere. This weekend the winds were 50 km/h with gusts of 80 km/h so that kind of ruled out a day on the ocean. I e-mailed anyway to see if anyone was up for a paddle thinking a day to play on a lake somewhere would be ok. A few friends knowing I'm new to the sport e-mailed me to inform me about the winds thinking i was going to head to St. Philip's and suggested a day off maybe to take care of home projects. I thought it through and took their advice. There was no way I was going on the ocean alone and to be honest the lake probably would have been all work with very little fun, so here is how I filled my day.
So I'm going to say thanks to Tony and Dean for checking in with me and here is why...
I had to take a trip to St. Philip's to see what 50 km/h would produce and here is a few shots of the water.
As you can see there are some pretty decent waves. The pictures never do this kind of stuff any justice but believe me it was intense.
Again thanks for checking with me by's, you never know and its better to check because if anything happened and I was caught capsized alone in those waters.... we'll it might have been a bad day.
On a brighter note I did have a few thing to finish up, and one of those things was getting some deck lines on the front of my kayak. My kayak didn't have deck lines all the way to the front and there were no points to add them so I did the best I could without drilling holes (its actually a loaner kayak) so I didn't want to drill new holes in it.
A few weeks ago I capsized in some rougher conditions and as Tony was trying to help empty my kayak a bigger wave came and he lost control of the boat because I had no line on the front. Its not perfect but its something to grab on to. That was the first order of business.
Fixed up the back deck line as well. HARDEST part...tying the damn knots haha....thanks you tube!
I built my first Greenland paddle a while back but only used it for a few minutes because there was a crack in the loom I didn't notice until I started paddling. A few weeks ago I made another paddle, nothing fancy, just for smacking around the rocks and things like that.
So last week I started a nicer looking paddle I plan on using for the calmer days or maybe on an overnight trip. Its clear pine an padauk. I add padauk on all my paddles just because its my favorite type of wood.
I started the rough cutting last week, now I'm down to smoothing the blank.
I tried to add a little style to the tip...I think it turned out pretty good.
Here it sits almost finished. I just have some light sanding and then the clear coat.
I'm also in the middle of making a foam core fibreglass greenland paddle so stay tuned for that one. Should be finished within the next 2 or 3 weeks.
Even though I didn't get out on the water today I still had some fun fixing up my kayak and making another paddle. We have plans already for a Wednesday paddle at Tors cove so check back for those pics later this week!
