We Three Kings (and Accomplice) Take on Thomas Point

Let me tell you a story about three kings who travel from afar guided by an unnatural light. I'm, of course, talking about the Pirate Kings of the Pirates of Georgetown paddling out to Thomas Point lighthouse. But the day didn't start with the paddling trip, and the paddling trip didn't start as the paddling trip, so let me rewind a little.

One of our PoG regulars, Jim G., owns a house down in Chincoteague. Back last year Jim hatched the idea of going down there for a spring kayak trip. He invited Tall Tom, Larry and me (the afore-mentioned kings) - and we even put a date on the calendar for it; however, as the day approached the weather forecast looked terrible - high winds and heavy rains. So, after much gnashing of teeth we decided to postpone the weekend. Since we had all already planned to take Friday off (well, Tom and I did; the other guys are retired) and Friday's weather looked good, we decided we instead would do a significant day paddle.

But wait, it was also Bike to Work Day. Normally Tom & I are early morning people, but in this case I advocated for a post-rush hour start. This allowed everyone to take care of their morning duties of dog-walking and such, and let me join in on Bike to Work Day. Yes, at 7 AM I biked to work, well actually the pit stop a block from my office where I picked up swag (t-shirt, Capital Bikeshare socks, and the expected water bottle). I then turned right around and biked back home. It's embarrassing what I'll do for a free t-shirt ... I mean, I wanted to show my support for bike-friendly activities!

Bike to Work Pit Stop Shenanigans

After changing from kayaking to paddling clothes I headed to Annapolis. Jim and Larry are resolute regulars on Thursday nights, but the two of them have done little kayaking elsewhere. They're both sailors and have been on the Chesapeake Bay, but never by kayak.

It was indeed a beautful day - warm but not hot, little wind, calm water. We launched from Truxton Park and headed out Spa Creek, which is always fun because of the variety and number of boats and houses along the way. Fun scenery. There are always some impressive yachts around the area known as "ego alley", but rarely anything as big as the mega-yacht that was docked there on this trip. This thing towered over everything else in the harbor. And it's available for charter, for on $160,000 per week - plus expenses, of course.

Out of Spa Creek, southeast into the Severn River, head south at Tolly Point. We took a lunch break at the beach in front of the Chesapeake Conservancy. The Conservancy boasts one of the greenest buildings on the planet - LEED Platinum certified - but it's an office building and so they weren't really into having a group of mangy kayakers wandering into their building. They were very nice about it, though, and invited us to explore the outside as much as we wanted. I will note that at a nature conservancy on Bike to Work Day there was only *one* bike in the bike rack.

Anyway, from there we headed straight out to the lighthouse - about two miles southeast at that point - where we all posed for the obligatory pictures. We then made a beeline back to Tolly Point. We took another snack/bio break on the way back. As I was launching a couple of waves broke over my boat, filling it with quite a bit of water. It took me a little while to get the boat pumped out and get going, by which point the other guys were wondering what was going on. Tom came over and gently inquired if I was OK. In fact, I was feeling great. I had been nursing my water supply a little bit (note to self - go back to using the *big* Camelback) but knowing that we were close to home, at the break I drank most of my remaining water, which eased the tiredness I had been feeling on the paddle back in from the lighthouse. I guess I had been getting dehydrated, not helped by the fact that I was a little over-dressed in a full "Farmer John" wet suit on a warm day.

At the Lighthouse

We made one more stop on the way back. We pulled out at Annapolis Canoe & Kayak to browse and visit Dave I., our friend who works there. Total mileage, 16.3.

Jim and Larry suggested a place called Cantler's for dinner. I was afraid that this would be one of those "Salty Seamen Crab Shack" shellfish-only kinda places where I can never find anything to eat but, to their credit, they had a variety of regular fish as well as shellfish items on the menu. I'm glad I had GPS to guide me - the place is an old neighborhood place deep into a residential neighborhood, and you have to take a lot of turns to get there. Consider it the Aunt Bella's of Annapolis. Most impressive was the group of Naval Academy plebes in their dress white uniforms eating crab and lobster. Now that takes caution!

I really wanted a beer but was tired from the day's biking and paddling exertions and so wisely, I think, stuck to iced tea. I got home and actually had to nap for 15 minutes before I even had the energy to unload my gear! I think I've got to get back into paddling shape and get used to the sun. Anyway, it was a great day with great companions.

At the Lighthouse

And on Saturday I caught up on work, which wasn't so back because, as forecast, it turned out to be a rainy, yucky day.

Trip to Thomas Point - to Make a Point

Meetups will eventually be the death of traditional clubs like the Chesapeake Paddlers Association. I’ve said it before and it was amply demonstrated by this event. 

Some folks have been agitating for greater water access in Anne Arundel County. There are parks on the bay which, while publicly funded and officially "public", have traditionally been accessible only by those in the immediate neighborhood who have the key/combination to get in. This really isn't right, and recently there have been some successes in opening these parks to the public. One success story in this area is Beverly-Triton Park, which is now open and which is a great launch point for a paddle out to Thomas Point lighthouse. Access to nearby Mayo Beach Park is a work in progress – it’s currently open to the public just a few days per year. This past Saturday was one of those days and so a group was organized to show that there’s public interest in the park. Some of us launched out of Beverly-Triton and paddled over to Mayo, while others launched directly from Mayo Beach.

 

The group at Thomas Point shoal

Even though the water access activists and organizers of this event are all CPA members, this show-of-force trip was created via one of the paddling Meetups. Why? Well, I don't know - but I suspect that it has to do with the fact that Meetups can be spontaneous, plus the software platform takes care of sending out notifications as well as tracking sign-ups and communications (such as the back-and-forth about the potential for thunderstorms on the day of this trip), while the CPA calendar is largely set months in advance, and you actively have to go to the CPA site to know what's going on.

All that having been said, a group of about nine of us launched from Beverly-Triton and headed over to Mayo, where we marveled at the facilities (for a place that's not really open to the public, it has a lot of infrastructure) and met up with the rest of the group. From there we made a bee-line out to Thomas Point Light. The water was as smooth as the bay gets - not glassy, but waves six inches in height at the most. After the requisite photo ops we cut back west to Thomas Point Park where we took a lunch break. After crossing the South River the group split. Some people had time constraints and wanted to head back, while some wanted to add a little more distance and go around Turkey Point. My shoulder was feeling a little achy and I was concerned about the thunderstorms which were predicted for the afternoon, so I opted to head back.

 

Back at the launch, one paddler revealed that he had thrown out his back unloading the boat in the morning. He had been fine paddling, he said, but picking up the kayak would be a problem. I've been there with back problems, shoulder problems, etc. and so Tom and I loaded his boat for him.

 

A good ten mile day with both old and new paddling companions.

PT Paddle from Annapolis

Saturday I went on another physical therapy paddle with Tom. Tom reports that he is doing “some” of his formal PT exercises and so we are augmenting his recovery by engaging in regular functional exercise – otherwise known as kayaking. We launched out of Truxton Park in Annapolis, chosen because I had a secondary agenda of visiting Annapolis Canoe and Kayak (ACK) to check out a remarkable deal they had on a nearly new Current Designs Cypress kayak. The forecast for the day was low 50's but as we launched there was still a very thin sheet of ice in the still water by the beach and so we got the pleasure of the feel and sound of cutting through the ice. 

We paddled out of Spa Creek and out around the Naval Academy into the Severn River. With the warmer weather plus chemical hand-warmers I didn’t have the same problems with cold hands I had had on the previous outing. Our previous PT paddles had been 4 and 6 miles, respectively, and I had upped the mileage by two miles once again with a roughly 8 mile route. I was afraid that Tom would want to push further but I was happy to discover that he was self-limiting on duration. Apparently he's taking his wife's advice (“you only want to do rehab once”) to heart.

Exploring creeks is always fun and in winter time has the added benefit of providing sheltered waters in which to paddle. After a false start into a dead-end creek we pushed back into Weems Creek as far as the Ridgely Avenue swing bridge, ogling the houses and big boats as always, then turned around to head back. The wind had changed direction (doesn't it always?) and so on we were paddling into the wind with some slightly choppy conditions in the Severn until we rounded the corner back into Spa Creek.

As planned we made a stop at ACK, pulling out at their dock. Do you know what I love about Annapolis? It's a place where just about everyone is involved in some sort of boating activity. So, when you walk into a store decked out in a dry suit and life jacket (PFD) no one bats an eye. In fact, the only one in the kayak shop who mentioned our attire was a customer who was in there shopping for a dry suit himself (he asked what we thought of our particular suits).  Alas, the kayak I had my eye on had already had been sold. If our friend Dave, who is one of the managers of the shop, had been there we might have hung around to chat but he wasn’t and so we headed back to our kayaks (passing a contingent of maids from a yacht cleaning service (!) - who also didn't bat an eye at our attire) to paddle the last mile or two back to our put-in.

Launching from ACK's dock (Maryland statehouse in the background)

  

Along the way we bumped into another kayaker out enjoying the day, a fellow named Marshall. Not someone we knew - a nice guy though. He paddled with us all the way to Truxton Park where he got out of his kayak for a break while we unloaded out stuff. Marshall turned out to be 6' 6" tall, slightly edging out the 6' 5" Tall Tom and certainly making me feel like a Munchkin.

Y'know, in these postings I'm always harping on Tom's and my relative heights. As an engineer I like data and so I decided that for this posting I’d get quantitative about it. Look at the height density chart below. At 5' 10" I'm right at the average point. Now, look at Tom & Marshall's height range (77 and 78 inches). They're taller than the point marked as "Very Tall" (I didn't add this annotation). See, so it's not just me being height sensitive - the data backs up the fact that these guys are TALL – in the tail of the distribution occupied by primarily by pro athletes and Bond henchmen (Richard Kiel, who played Jaws, is 7’ 2” tall). As an average height guy I shouldn’t feel short, but I think I tend to notice the half of guys who are taller than I am more than the half who are shorter. But I digress …

Height of North American Men

I chatted in the parking lot with a SUP paddler about the benefits of a dry suit vs. wet suit – cold water is something that needs to be respected and one should always be prepared for immersion. As we packed our gear we saw a group of three people in street clothes launch in recreational kayaks. No cold water gear at all. I’m sure they were fine ... as long as they didn’t capsize.

Anyway, after a quick lunch at Quizno’s we headed home. We had originally planned to paddle on Sunday and when I awoke the next morning to bone-chilling rain I was glad we were able to move our outing to the beautiful weather of Saturday.

Paddling Route: Truxton Park to
Chesapeake Bay Foundation

My friend Ed's been off the water for a while dealing with various medical problems. He's finally feeling up to paddling so this weekend he organized a return to paddling "coming out party", paddling out of Truxton Park in Annapolis. Ed wasn't sure how much distance he'd be up for, but we had a laid back group that was ready to be supportive and take on whatever distance and speed turned out to be appropriate.

I had never launched from Truxton before, as I'd heard it's kind of a madhouse of boats. That turns out to be true, but it's also a pretty cool (and free!) place to get on the water. Yes, I felt like I was playing kayaking Frogger here and there, but a few minutes of paddling takes you to "ego alley", the point in downtown Annapolis where the yachts tie up, there's some nice sightseeing in Spa Creek and from there it's a quick hop out into the Severn River and the Chesapeake Bay.

Our group of seven included Ed, me, a woman named Melissa whom I hadn't met before, my kayaking neighbor Jen, Yvonne, and kayaking couple Greg and Jenny. Greg's an experienced and inventive paddler - always experimenting with this and that. Today he was kayaking with a stumpy canoe paddle rather than the usual double-bladed kayak paddle. Jenny is someone who is both skilled and just wonderfully graceful on the water. I took rolling lessons with her at several different kayaking events back when I was learning to roll. They're both really nice, laid back people to boot. Yvonne and Jen had spent the night on Yvonne's boyfriend's boat in Galesville. They had been out partying the night before but looked none the worse for wear.

We did the little trip into downtown and then headed east out the mouth of the Severn. From there we headed south down the edge of the Bay, passing the "Maritime Republic of Eastport" and then heading down towards the South River. We took a break at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, where we all gathered at a picnic table looking out over the sandy beach and the Bay. From this spot we could see the activity of the Chesapeake - the big freighters, the small sailboats, Thomas Point Lighthouse.

Ed, Greg, Jenny and Jen at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation

On the trip back we picked up a small amount of chop. We got to watch a guy experimenting with a standup paddle board - and repeatedly falling off in the waves. We saw some sailboat racers. We detoured to see if the Blackburns, some members of the club, were there on their boat but alas, they weren't. Finally, we returned to Truxton, having covered 11.2 miles. This was much longer than we expected to paddle, a good sign for Ed's stamina and overall fitness. After loading the boats a few folks headed out to lunch, but since it was getting late I just headed home - hitting some traffic from the nasty Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin rally along the way. Grrrr.


A perfect day weatherwise (sunny, not too hot, not too windy), and a nice opportunity for a group paddle to commemorate

Publish Post

Ed's return to the water.