November 6, 1999

Hunters!

Trip #61

MAP

5.8 Miles

Saturday was a pretty benign paddle. The task at hand was to have just a short paddle around Piscataway creek and invade the Atlantic Kayak Used boat sale from the water. I had just put my kayak in the water at the end of Warf Road and was paddling across the creek to look at the ducks on the far side when Joan arrived and blew her horn. I turned around and beached to help her carry her boat to the water.

We discussed getting off the water early since Joan had a First Aid and CPR class to attend. We paddled off at an angle across the creek towards the Ft. Washington Marina. Not far from shore shotgun blasts rang out. BLAM BLAM

I turned to see a group of hunters not far down the shore dressed in camouflage milling about around a duck blind. We headed more directly towards the other side, giving as much berth to the hunters as possible. Still more shots rang out, and I only could hope that we were out of range of the bird shot.

On the other side we paddled by the Atlantic Kayak folks rushing to get their wares on display. We said hello and decided to paddle on since it would be another hour before they opened for business. Out in the Potomac I finally got to see Ft. Washington. As much as I paddle the Potomac, I've never seen the fort. Even now the Sun is in my eyes so I couldn't tell much. We head back to the marina to look at the boats.

We debated trying to teach me to get out of my kayak on the floating dock, or paddle around the beach and walk to the boat demo. Joan started to try and get out, but after looking at the difference between the dock and the water we decided to paddle to the beach. As we came around the other side of the dock, Joan mentioned it looked closer to the water on this side. I got up closer and she was right, a BIG difference between the two sides of the dock.

I decided to give it a try, and after a few pointers from Joan I managed to get on the dock without falling in. A pure miracle if you ask me. Joan pop onto the dock fairly effortlessly and we tied up our boats to the dock as if they were some sort of exotic yacht.

We milled around and saw Charmaine Ruppolt, who was there looking for a new paddle to replace her heavy Feathercraft stick. Joan and I were looking at the different seats in the Current Designs boats (I'm looking for a potential replacement for my stock Gulfstream seat - one with a bit more "beam") when Joan said something like "Woody, take a look at this". This caught the attention of a nice gentleman who asked if I was the "Woody who wrote the stories on CPA". A bit embarrassed I told Joan she needed to start calling me something else in public 8^). We chatted a bit and I then went over to look at the used paddles for sale. I ended up buying a cheap Aquabound paddle to replace my spare for $50.

After Joan picked up a few things we were back again in our boats. Getting in was much easier than getting out for some reason. Maybe gravity. We untied our boats and headed up the creek as a police boat pulled out from the marina and across the river, I guess to check out the hunters. Up the creek the water turned shallow quickly and we found ourselves constantly running aground. We probed for quite a while looking for the channel, but gave up and paddled back to the launch site. I did find a dead crab in the water and I scooped him up with my Greenland paddle and sat him on my front hatch as we paddled back to the ramp. Sort of like the equivalent of taking your dog for a ride in the car with him sticking his head out the window is what I imagined. Cold water had probably done this fellow in though so his tongue stayed in it's mouth.

It was still early for Joan's class so I suggested we try on our dry suits. After some really comical contortions we managed to slip them over our wet suits and wade out into the water. Joan suggested I squat down to burp the suit which I did. The tide had really gone out and I was soon knee deep in silt. We backed out and probed further down the creek. It was better, but soon turned to silt again before getting deep. I decided to heck with it and just leaned back. I floated there like the Stay Puff marshmallow man. I reached up and vented a little air around my neck which helped a little. Joan did the same thing and mentioned she had a hard time turning over to get back up. When I tried, I rolled over with a little effort, but now found my arms and legs up to the first joint in muck. YUCK! Luckily, it didn't stick to the fabric well.

The only cold spot was my hands. I was only wearing fingerless gloves so that was to be expected. We walked back up the shore to get in our boats to paddle a bit in the suits. I raised a leg to check the suit stretch and was shocked to see a stream of water shoot from between my legs. This of course was funny to me so I made it a point to show Joan. The seat of my suit was double layered, and the ports to vent the water trapped between the layers vented right in the crotch. Anyway, if you picture a 38 year old man squatting down so a stream of water shoots out from between his legs and then laughing about it...ummm...I guess you had to be there.

We paddled maybe 5 minutes, more to check the cut of the suits than anything else. We landed and Joan mentioned her suit had leaked at the wrist. The wrist seals a pretty good, so we were both trying to figure out how the water got in. When she took her suit off though, it became apparent that it was sweat that was beginning to pool at the wrists. That was the big difference between Joan's coated nylon suit and my Gore-Tex suit. We had only been in them for a few minutes, but I never once felt any sweat starting to build on the inside of mine.

We went through the same comical contortions to get our suits off and Joan headed to class while I backed my truck down to the water to wash the scum line off my kayak. While finishing up the last bit I looked up at the single lane road that leads up to the boat ramp, and a large deer stood across the road for a few minutes before wondering off into the woods.