The First Paddle of Spring

The calendar says spring. The air says spring. But the water still says winter. My response to all this talking is to continue to watch the weather carefully. I was tempted to postpone my paddling until Sunday but it was forecast to be sunnier on Saturday and at this time of the year I hedge my bets in favor of the most comfortable day I can find. Plus, Saturday was the RICKA club Soiree. Why make the commute twice?

JoeS, JohnS, EllenS, PaulB, CaroleC, and BillR arrived at Compass Rose Beach in Quonset. We said our spring hellos and discussed how many layers to wear. The wind was dead calm as we launched and temperatures were in the mid 40’s. We were greeted by a solo seal that turned and followed us for a bit. This was a great show for E. It was the first seal she had seen from a kayak. (And I've been describing winter seal sightings to her for 3 years now.)

Our first destination was the north side of Jamestown. The paddling was smooth and easy. We discussed Joe’s knee, Joes’s memory, Joes’s dinner… and movies, mostly Bill Murray! We passed Jamestown and turned north towards Prudence. We were entertained by a large container ship moving at a crawl and two tugs creating surfable waves, unfortunately not in the direction of interest.


As we approached Prudence we choose to head up the west side. This was an area I’ve never explored. We passed waterfalls cascading over the rocky shoreline and some very nice houses. We chose to stop for lunch by a rock jetty about 1/3 of the way up the island. By this time the breeze had started out of the south west. It was gentle but we all found that we quickly cooled off as our dry suits passed some built up moisture through evaporation. Again, the Kelly kettle was conspicuously absent. Fortunately we had all packed our favorite hot beverages in thermoses. It’s interesting that despite the warm sun and warm forecast temperature, we packed up from lunch more because we were chilled than anything else. It just helped to confirm my decision to paddle on the sunnier, warmer day of the weekend.

We then headed west towards Hope I. This was the destination of a very memorable paddle we made last November. Today however it was just a rest spot. And an opportunity for me to trade my Boreal Ellesmere for B’s Riot Aura. This sleek, 17’10"x. 20.5" is a full 10 inches longer and 1.5 inches slimmer than my boat. It was however very comfortable. It would not turn flat but responded well to a bit of lean. It had a definite point of secondary stability despite its slim profile. My only gripe was that it needed inside knee or thigh bracing to keep me in contact with the boat. I stayed in this boat all the way back to Quonset so I got a pretty good chance to try it out. I didn’t push it too hard however because of the cold water. I really didn’t want to end up up-side-down.

We paddled around the north side of Hope and tucked just inside of Despair I. Here we spied another handful of seals. Just as we were ready to peel away from Hope we saw what looked like an abandoned inflatable boat. Joe pulled out his hand held radio and called it in to the coast guard. They seemed to chat for quite some time about the details of the discovery.


Only in retrospect do I realize that the final crossing back to Quonset had a very different feel. Back in November this crossing was a bit somber because we all new that the “nice” paddling weather was over. This however was the first paddle of spring. The best of the season is yet to come.

3/24/07 air temperature 46 degrees, water temperature 40 degrees. Photo courtesy of Bill R.