December 4, 1999

Greenland sculling brace

Trip #68

6 miles

I didn't get up early, about 7:00am. I was on the water about 8:30, which is pretty late for me. Leesylvania State Park is where I ended up today for some more skills practice. It was near low tide so I paddled out a few hundred yards to get out far enough my paddle wouldn't hit bottom. I put on my neoprene hood and set up to roll.

The pain was almost immediate. As my head went under water my eyes began to hurt and it quickly started to spread inward toward the center of my brain. The water had gotten colder during the week and was now cold enough to cause me an instant ice cream headache.

I rolled back up and sat there with my eyes closed, hoping they would quickly warm up. After a few seconds the pain had gone and I sat there pondering if I wanted to go through with today's practice. I decided to go for it, but spend the bulk of my time practicing a Greenland sculling brace.

Over again, but this time not all the way. Chuck Sutherland had called me during the week and given me some things to try. I managed to scull for a few seconds but my paddle was slowly loosing ground and sinking towards the bottom. I gave in and allowed the boat to rotate me under water and I set up to roll back up. The headache was instantly back and I quickly popped to the surface. Again I waited for my eyes to warm up before doing anything else.

When my eyes were ready, I tipped again, this time allowing for a steeper blade angle. My paddle climbed to the top of the water and stayed there. The sweep speed, mostly because of the steep blade angle, was quite slow. My back was arched towards the water and the back deck as much as possible. I laid there slowly sculling and looking at the sky. When it came time to get back up, it was almost as simple as moving my back onto the rear deck of the kayak and sitting up.

Sure, it SOUNDS easy, but it still was a significant effort on my part and after about 30-40 minutes of practice I was tired and feeling a little unstable when upright. I decided to call off practice before I got too tired and paddled to [it's a secret] creek. I had been in this creek before but had never found the channel to explore it far. Now at low tide, I decided to give it another shot.

Down the left hand side of the creek since I knew there was deep water for a little ways. Being low tide I could now easily make out the channel and found it when it made a hard right hand turn and headed north across the marsh. Normally, this marsh would be under a foot or so of water and difficult to find the channel, but today it was obvious. The channel turned again, this time to the west and I followed along deeper and deeper. I had seen this marsh from the road, but never seen a channel through it. But at the moment, sitting here in the kayak I wondered how I could have missed it.

Geese, sea gulls, ducks and red winged black birds were filling this marsh. I passed a few hunting blinds, but luckily they were empty. I paddled further until I could hear the sound of rushing water. The water was coming down what looked to be concrete stairs leading back up to some sort of water treatment facility. At least I'm guessing that is what it was, but I didn't see any big tanks and the water didn't smell.

I decided to float up to where the water was coming into the creek. This little "bay" was about twice the size of my kayak and the wind was gently pushing me in that direction.

Then I saw a bass. Not a big one, but a large mouth bass none the less. He ran out of the little bay and under my kayak back towards the creek. The I saw another, and another, and then 15 to 20 more! Most were small, but there were a few that would run a good 4-6 pounds. They were all trapped between me and the bay and their only escape was to swim directly under me as the wind kept pushing me in their direction.

This wasn't the last of them. The bass were getting generally bigger and now I was seeing some big goldfish also (Coy?). Some were solid orange, some were brown and orange, and some were just brown. These were fairly good size fish also, maybe going a few pounds. Then I saw some I didn't recognize. Kind of dark and spotted, and taller and narrower than pan fish. Maybe crappie, but REAL BIG ones if they were. I saw a few pan fish and several more waves of bass.

In all, in a space of about 30 feet, I had seen well over 100 fish. They were enjoying the warm runoff from the plant up the hill. As I backed out of the little cove I could see the fish working their way back in. Being a fisherman myself, I was mainly interested in the size of the bass, and saw several that would probably push 5-6 pounds. Not lunkers, but really nice size fish.

I paddled up the creek a short way to where it split. I followed one branch and then another until they got too small to turn around so I backed out. On the return trip I just had to check out the fish again. Man, that was a lot of fish in such a small area. The smallest was at least as long as my hand. I saw some swimming further out in the creek this time too.

I paddled back to the park and again practiced a sculling brace on my side. Bit by bit it is getting better and requiring less effort to keep me above water. I found I could go from a completely inverted position, scull up to where my face was above water, then simply rotate up the rest of the way. Cool (in more ways than one).

I paddled to shore to pack up and go home. I wondered to myself if a face mask would help during these practice sessions to keep my eyes from getting cold (and hurting). My eyeglasses are going to be a big hindrance in keeping water away from my eyes...