CatchSUP

This picture is from mid-December, the last time I saw my SUP. Shortly after this, Uncle John came down with pneumonia and had to take a break from, well, everything. He’s doing much better now and amongst the busy holidays managed to find time to finish shaping my Trueline SUP. It has been sent off to be glassed; I should have it in my hot little hands in a few weeks.

But not having my SUP isn’t going to keep me from SUPping! We got in a few paddles before the holidays. San Diego’s summer finally arrived in one beautiful 70+ degree Sunday in mid-December. Clarke and I took out the Trueline SUPs with a few friends on Ikuna Koa OC-1s (one-person outrigger canoes). Now, I’ve been spoiled on all my previous SUP sessions because I’ve really only been SUPping since the fall and even on nice days my paddles have been during lunch breaks when the bay is almost, if not completely, empty. On this suddenly warm and sunny Sunday, I got a peak of what summer on the bay will be like…plenty of jet skis and powerboats and no one looking out for a lone figure on a board. At least on this excursion there were four of us (Jess F, Kelly C, Clarke and myself) in relatively close proximity to each other making us more visible. We launched out of De Anza Cove and headed towards Cresent Island where the heat of the day demanded voluntary hulis (huli is Hawaiian for turn, and in canoe-speak means to flip your vessel upsidesidedown, usually not done on purpose). After this, the girls on their OC-1s took off towards SeaWorld and Clarke and I paddled back in the general direction of De Anza Cove. We took a slight detour in one of the narrow channels through the marsh near Crown Point, paddling until it became almost too narrow to turn around. We made it back to De Anza in the late afternoon sunshine and headed home to clean up before the Gull Crew Christmas party.

The weather on the following weekend however, was about as far from that 70+ sunshine as San Diego can get. But the three of us (Jess F, Clarke and myself) were not to be deterred from getting on the water. This time, Jess and Clarke took out the OC-1s and I was the loan SUPper. I launched ahead of them since I’m already at a speed disadvantage compared to their well-seasoned paddling arms. It didn’t take them too long to catch up and then pass me, but I kept them in my sight. I wasn’t too worried about paddling solo; there were no other crazies on the water that day except for us. It was a struggle to move in any type of forward direction; I was doing a lot of paddling to stay in place. At one point, I stopped paddling to see how much the wind would push me back. Big mistake. BIG. The wind began to turn my board (with me still on it) and I quickly reacted and began to paddle but the sudden weight shift knocked me off balance. It seem to happen in slow motion…I had all the time in the world to reason why I shouldn’t bother trying to regain my balance knowing that that action might cause me to hit the board as I fell. Instead of fighting it, I just let myself fall in. It was cold! However, I was pretty damp already from the not-quite-rainy mist that had been falling since we launched. I managed to stay close to my board although my paddle drifted a bit. I swam after it and tossed it on the board before climbing back on myself. Clarke paddled back to check on me, offered to swap me his dry(ish) jersey for my sopping wet jersey but I declined figuring that there was good chance I’d fall in again (I didn’t). Determind not to turn around right after a fall I continued my slow progress forward. I was hoping to reach Children’s Island but it just wasn’t gonna happen. I crossed the inlet south of the visitor’s center and decided to turn around. I waved to Jess and Clarke and zoomed back to De Anza Cove (yes, you can zoom on a SUP). It was an odd feeling to paddle with the current, the intense wind seemingly nonexistant facing the opposite direction. On shore, struggling against the wind, it took me forever to load the board on top of the RAV. I had barely finished when I saw the OC-1s appear around the corner into De Anza.

My first open ocean paddle happened on our winter camping trip. The day before my birthday dawned warm and sunny. I’m glad I took that opportunity to paddle since the rest of the week was cold, windy and rainy. I walked with the 10’6″ Trueline SUP on my head from our campsite to the beach, just south of the river outlet. It was a quick launch through the minimal shorebreak and I was in the open ocean. I immediately wished for the 12′ SUP that I had chosen not to bring, unsure how it would handle the 200-mile drive to Santa Barbara atop the rented Westy. Flat though the water was, it was decidely more swelly than Mission Bay. I was gripped with irrational fear but forced myself to keep paddling and I calmed down, a bit. I paddled makai (ocean-side) of the large kelp bed and right into a smooth patch of water which I recognized as a current. I moved steadily south with Clarke and Harley mirroring me on the beach. I reached an area parallel with an outcropping of rocks on the shore and decided to turn around. Still in the current, I immediately fell in. The water was thankfully not too cold and the day still warm. The board had drifted when I fell and I swam towards it with paddle in hand, deciding right then and there that I needed a leash (which, coincidentally, Clarke got me a purple one for my birthday). I tried a few times to stand up and begin paddling, but I kept falling right back in the water. So I paddled on my knees for a while, tried to stand up again, fell in again, resumed knee paddling, repeat. I knee paddled my way out of the current and promised myself that once I passed the buoy on the edge of the kelp bed I would stand up the rest of the way in. I found my footing and was able to paddle back towards the spot I had launched. Clarke directed me in like a taxiing airplane on the runway until my feet hit sandy ground. I was still shaking a bit but I think it was more from the adrenaline than the chill of the water. My first open ocean SUP paddle was a success, despite my dripping clothes.

My first paddle of the new year was last Friday at lunchtime. The rains had been over for a few days so I felt comfortable to get back in the bay. Clarke grabbed the 12′ and paddle from Uncle John’s, since we still had the 10’6″ from our trip, and picked me up at noon. I wanted to try a new section of the bay and after a quick check of my SUP map decided to hit up the channel behind SeaWorld. Instead of driving onto Fiesta Island we opted to launch from South Shores. We unloaded, parked the car and then walked down the dock and dropped the boards in the water. It was about a 18″ drop from the top of the dock to the top of the board, but we managed not to fall in. We took a nice relaxing paddle through the channel between SeaWorld and Fiesta Island, remembering our SeaWorld costume character days. We passed under the Sky Buckets and paddled briefly through the SeaWorld Marina in search of a boat ramp (there is none). We paddled back with the current (which is trippy because you don’t feel like you’re moving since there is no wind in your face, but in reality you’re moving quickly) and arrived at an empty South Shores. Instead of trying to manage to jump from water to dock we paddled to the concrete boat ramp and managed to only get our feet wet.