2013: Post 36 – Unexpected fun at St.Philips

Sean e-mailed yesterday to see if I wanted to have a go in his double kayak (the Glacier) at the Thursday evening practice; there was a bit of wind on the go and he was hoping to give it a good try in some waves...

I still have the rack-less rental (see previous post) and cannot transport my kayak.  I had not been in a double kayak before and it sounded like an uninteresting venture but at least it was an opportunity to get to another Thursday practice for some water time.  Well, was I wrong.  I have to say it was far from an uninteresting venture!!  

We had a lot of fun and I think the other people there had a few laughs at us too.  We did self rescues and synchronized bracing, sculling, and rolls.  We paddled hard at times to see how fast we could get the thing moving and managed to bury the bow a few times on some bigger waves.   

When Sean did not paddle I could really feel the extra effort required to keep the kayak moving, and when we both paddled together in sync we could really move along. Sean meant to bring his GPS just to see what kind of speed we could get out of the Glacier but he forgot.  I do not know how hard the guys in the singles were paddling but we could pull away from them without too much trouble.  I figure you can cover a lot of distance in a day in one of these kayaks with a couple decent paddlers.

Anyway here are a few pics taken by Cheryl, Tony, and myself during the evening...

In the double as Eugene watches

Cheryl (Sean's better half)

Julie

Brian

Sean

Tony

Barb

Sean had jumped out so I had to see
if I could roll the double by myself

Sometimes I pretended to be Cheryl and would stop paddling!
(Sorry Cheryl, I couldn't resist).  But then sometimes Sean
would scold me by hitting me with his paddle.  He said
that's what he does with Cheryl... but I doubt it.

After fooling around in the cove for a while we decided to paddle towards Topsail Beach...

Julie and Barb

Derrick

Neville

The group

Check out Tony's entry from last night for a few more pics... 

... and Cheryl took a little video of one of the better synchronized rolls we managed in the double... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDtqFzmbuDE&feature=youtu.be

Well, I do not think I would ever own a double kayak, or would want to paddle in one all the time, but it sure was a bit of fun to try it out last night...