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| Trip 7 Lake Sammamish 9 miles Met my friend Bob Morey at Idlewood park on the NW end of Lake Sammamish after work Thursday evening on a bright sunny and warm day. This is really pushing my vow to always dress for immersion, the lake is glass calm and air temp is near 70 degrees. Water temp is probably around 50 and I want to try for a roll again so I don the suit and booties. We basically just paddle across and down the lake for about 4 miles enjoying the sunshine and nice scenery. I did attempt a roll once we got near the opposite shore. Visualize intense concentration.....smooth fully controled roll over to inverted.....several seconds of calm.....followed by wild thrashing splashing and general drowning sounds then head bobs up gasping because the water is still pretty da@% cold and the wetsuit only works after 5 min in the water. Then Bob sitting there waiting while I spend 10 min getting all the water out of the boat and reentering. Did a little more of this when we got back to the takeout beach. One of these days a roll WILL happen. If only to speed up the rescue practice that I am determined to do on every trip till I can do it without thinking. Only other event of note was the very disturbing volume of water that got in my rear hatch while I practiced. I still don't have a good seal for it and I probably got 3 gallons of water sloshing around in there by the time we quit for the evening. This was my first trip out with another boat along, It was much better in some ways and worse in others. I found it harder to get into the groove and felt that my paddling was not nearly as effective but overall it was more fun that when I go alone because of the social aspect.. I would much rather share the experience with someone else not to mention the safety aspects of having another person to help you out of trouble. I will continue to paddle alone but also am committed to making it as safe as possible thru rescue practice and good route selection combined with an awareness of potential hazards and willingness to blow off a trip if conditions are outside my experience level. |
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