June 27, 1999

A Guest At Mallows Bay

Trip #31

8.7 miles

MAP

I had sent Joan directions on how to get to Quantico Marine Base, I had no idea she would use her own directions. To make a long story short we waited for each other at opposite gates, and as luck would have it, the opposite boat ramps. By shear luck we passed each other as I was giving up to go home.

Having solved this dilemma, we unloaded our boats and I rolled a few times to get wet. It was shaping up to be a hot day and the hazy humidity didn't look like much fun. As we headed out towards the mouth of the creek being pushed along by the outrunning tide, I realized my water bottle had come off my deck while rolling. I assumed it probably sank but decided to head back and look for it anyway. I didn't need to go far since the tide was also carrying my water bottle out as fast as it was carrying us.

The Potomac was absolutely flat. The only waves were from the fast speeding bass boats on their way to the next fishing hole. I've noticed that this section of the Potomac has two major areas of boat traffic. Within about a quarter to half mile from each shore, the boats tend to stay in that area. Once in the middle of the Potomac the boats, especially the small ones, don't tend to come out that far except to cross the river.

We reached Mallows about an hour before low tide and after looking around from the small beach we headed across the bay to look at the iron ship. From here we went off into the marshy creek on the south end of the bay as far as we could go. This creek was barely wider than 3 feet in a lot of places, and sometimes just deep enough to float the kayaks.

Having explored the creek we headed back across the bay to the beach and to have lunch. The wind and waves were really picking up. We made good time across the bay and in no time we were eating lunch and talking about the return crossing. This was no problem for me, but Joan didn't have that much experience in following seas this big. We should make pretty good time since the wind was from the south and Quantico was north west of our present location.

I chose to take a slightly southwesterly track for the first 3/4 of a mile. This would let us get more comfortable with the waves and be a little less beamy once we turned north for the base. The waves were not huge, just enough that when about 10 to 15 yards apart we couldn't see each other's kayak when we were both in a wave trough, only the upper portion of the body.

I was glad Joan had Wendy's kayak with the rudder. I think Joan's Breeze would have been hard to hold in line with the following seas. I was having a blast but I wasn't sure about Joan so I asked her a few times how she was doing. She seemed to be enjoying it also and turned down my offer to point into the wind for a little break. I told Joan I'd like to try rolling in this type of water, which I think made her nervous so I didn't even try. But once back in the mouth of the creek at Quantico I rolled several times to cool off.

Back at the boat ramp an elderly guy and his grandson were loading up their fishing boat. I decided to roll a few times more, which caused them to stop and just watch for a while. I told Joan I wanted to attempt an offside roll. I also told her it would most likely fail and I would probably come out of the boat.

I set up and went over. Just about everything you can do wrong, I did. No hip snap, trying to pull the head out first, etc. Worse, I thought I might try to "swim" to the other side of the boat and set up to roll up on my "on" side. At least I thought I would. I wet exited and set up for a paddlefloat reentry. As I was climbing in, Joan said something and I turned to look over my shoulder to ask her what she had said. As I did I suddenly realized I had shifted my weight to the wrong side and could only watch the paddlefloat streak through the air in a semi-circle as I headed again for the water. Of course, this provided much amusement for Joan, and no doubt the other fishermen nearby.

I finally got back in and told Joan I was concerned I couldn't figure out how to swim over to my on side. This meant I could roll up if knocked over to my right, but not if I fell over to my left. I suddenly felt constrained again, as if I didn't know how to roll at all.

I told Joan I had to figure out how to swim to the other side. Up till now I had tipped over on the right, and rolled back up on the same side. So this time I tipped over on the left and used the momentum to carry me through back to the right and I rolled up. That provided me enough feeling of how it *should* go when swimming from side to side that I tried just that. Over I went and I twisted back and forth at the waist to move to both sides of the kayak several times before finally rolling up on my on side.

One final thing for me to try today. I went over to try and roll up on my off side. After failing I shifted under the boat and set up for the on side roll and came up with no problem. At least now I felt confident I could attempt my learning to off side roll without having to do a paddlefloat reentry each time. I also felt confident that if knocked over on my off side I could swim under to my on side and set up for a roll attempt.

This was enough fun for one day so we loaded up the boats and I showed Joan the *right* way to leave the base.