I asked Shannon to pause so I could get a picture of the Mirage in the Gorge, to which she replied, "What about me? Take a picture of me." Ok. So here's a picture of Shannon paddling my Purple Mirage in the Rocky Gorge.

On Saturday, July 8th, I picked up about eight paddlers for a social paddle in the Rocky Gorge. The plan was to meet at the Brown's Bridge put-in at 9:30, but by 8:00 I still hadn't heard from Shannon. So I called her and woke her up. She answered the phone with, "Hi Susan." I think she was expecting my call. After debating with her the pros and cons of sleep vs kayaking on a warm summer day I convinced her to get up, grab something to eat and make the short drive over to my house. Shannon is looking for a new boat to replace her wooden strip boat so I loaded up the Mirage so she could take it out for a test paddle.

We got to the put-in right on time and found most people already there. Several people who emailed that they were coming didn't show. And a few people who didn't email did show. We also picked up two new paddlers at the put-in, Sherman, who paddles a custom made strip boat that looks like it belongs in a museum, and Rowe, who just acquired a plastic recreational boat. It was obvious that he was fairly new to paddling so around mile 2.8 mile he decided to head back to the put-in. But before he left we had some nice conversations about paddling, different types of boats, and of course I told him about CPA.

Todd, who paddles with Pirates of Georgetown, entertained everyone by reciting poetry for most of the trip. I suggested he do it in another language (because I really don't like poetry) to which he effortlessly switched into Russian, then gave a synopsis in English. I didn't understand either the Russian or the English version. Scott and Dave were two other paddlers who joined that I had never met. Dave paddles with the Baltimore Pirates and Scott came down from Frederick and was paddling a new Chesapeake Lightcraft kayak he had recently finished. Sue and Rich, who are both Pier 7 Pirates, also paddled with us.



My friend Russell emailed right before I left the house that he had just got my invitation and couldn't make the Brown's Bridge put-in so he decided to put-in at Scott's Cove and meet us on the river. We ran into him a few miles outside of Scott's Cove. It would have been a perfect day to do a conditioning paddle in the surfski, but this was a social paddle so we kept a nice steady pace of about 4.3 mph. I hung back near the rear. I knew if I was in front without view of the group ... I would be tempted to paddle too fast. The surfski really doesn't like to go slow.

The debris which filled the Gorge last Tuesday was mostly gone. That was a trip I didn't blog about ... mostly because the paddle was so frustrating. I had gone out that day armed with my GPS and my IPOD and had set my Garmin Forerunner 301 on race mode. On race mode you pick a pace for your virtual training partner and race against it. I picked a virtual racing partner with a race pace of 5.8 mph. I also set up the GPS to beep at me when my pace fell below a lower threshold. The paddle from Brown's Bridge to Scott's Cove is about 6 miles. One loop of 12 miles would be about the distance of most kayak races. I thought I had planned out the perfect kayak workout. However, what I hadn't planned on was "gunk." The Gorge was filled that day with "gunk" ... leaves, twigs, and this mysterious bubbly, slimy stuff. Just when I would get up to a good speed the "gunk" would wrap itself around the rudder and drag me down to a crawl. I spent most of the day cleaning the "gunk" out of the rudder. And the final insult was after I finished the 12 mile paddle my GPS beeped to inform me that I had lost the race. Arrgh!

Today the water was perfect and most of the "gunk" was gone. And even though it would have been a perfect day to race ... I kept a nice leisurely pace. We got back to the put-in around 2. Shannon took out Todd's Necky for a paddle and Dave's Montauk. Both nice boats. But ... they're not purple!



Later I went to a party at Uber Bob's. Ran into Bob, Gina, and Rick ... from the Tangier Trip ... as well as some other paddlers. We relived some of the stories from our trip and of course ... I told the story again of how I won the PA State Kayak Championship which started this whole blogging thing! I don't know how much more mileage I can get out of that one. Believe it or not ... some people are starting to tire of that story! Gina offered to loan me a tiara from her days as float queen. Hmmm.

-Susanita