I’ve been trying to reinstate the Tuesday evening paddle with Roger Lamb and to invite Konstantin to join us. For several weeks we all had other commitments and couldn’t get together. Finally on this Tuesday Konstantin could join me, although Roger could not. It looks like Wednesday might be a better day to schedule a weekday paddle this year. Konstantin agreed to meet me at Goat Rock a little after 4:00 PM. Once we were in the water (around 4:30) he also agreed that paddling south would be a good idea.
Konstantin forgot his helmet so he said that he would have to be a more conservative paddler today. When we paddled away from Goat Rock we turned out to the large arched rock offshore. Konstantin went through this big (10 meter) arch but declined to surf between the smaller rocks on the southwest side of the arch with me. But as we went farther south he started getting braver and braver, going between and behind rocks that I was a little leery about. I wondered what this guy would be like when he wasn’t being “conservative”. Later he admitted that he got a little carried away and failed to be as restrained as he should have been.
We went close to shore, sometimes in water only a few inches deep, and had a great time in one of the worlds least used wild outdoor playgrounds. When we got to the beginning of Wright’s Beach we turned back. There was a long stretch of sandy beach here with no rock gardens to play in. There was the reward at the other end of going through the “Crack in the Hogback”, but Konstantin definitely said that he should have his helmet on going through the channel in the middle of that rock. We turned back and went reasonably far from shore. We would have gone around the large arched rock, but when I told Konstantin that I “had to” go through the arch again, he admitted that it didn’t take much arm twisting to talk him into it.
Then Konstantin accelerated towards shore and landed way ahead of me. I spent some more time practicing my rolls in the cold water. After only four rolls (I intended to do six to follow Roger’s Rule) I got such a bad ice cream headache from the cold water that I decided to quit. At least these are non-fat ice cream headaches.