Apalachee River to Causeway XVI
Saturday, September 11, 2004 brint.adams@us.army.mil
I arrived at the old Riverdoc's parking lot under cloudy skies with a comfortable 74 degrees and pretty good breeze coming out of the northeast. The bay was filled back up and still rising. I knew as I took off to the east down Pass Picada, it would be a difficult start into the wind and against the rising tide. I counted strokes as I made my way past the restaurants and again knew my time would be much slower going east. When I arrived at the Apalachee River and turned, my watch confirmed my thoughts with a time of 9:00. Just to compare strokes, I counted on the return past Riverdoc's, and found I used 250 less strokes heading west, with a time of 6:30 and total split of 15:30. As I got out into more open water by the Causeway at the base of Chacaloochee Bay, the breeze turned up a little, creating a pretty good chop. I fought my way to the turnaround in 32:15 and stopped for a drink near a fisherman anchored under the Interstate bridge.
On the return, I stayed between the bridges as long as I could to stay out of the headwind, but finally cut under the westbound bridge and back out into the open bay. I just hunkered down and pushed ahead, not feeling I was getting into a very even rhythm having to fight the wind-induced chop. As I made it back to the put-in, my gator buddy had woken up and was there to greet me in a total time of 50:59.
I arrived at the old Riverdoc's parking lot under cloudy skies with a comfortable 74 degrees and pretty good breeze coming out of the northeast. The bay was filled back up and still rising. I knew as I took off to the east down Pass Picada, it would be a difficult start into the wind and against the rising tide. I counted strokes as I made my way past the restaurants and again knew my time would be much slower going east. When I arrived at the Apalachee River and turned, my watch confirmed my thoughts with a time of 9:00. Just to compare strokes, I counted on the return past Riverdoc's, and found I used 250 less strokes heading west, with a time of 6:30 and total split of 15:30. As I got out into more open water by the Causeway at the base of Chacaloochee Bay, the breeze turned up a little, creating a pretty good chop. I fought my way to the turnaround in 32:15 and stopped for a drink near a fisherman anchored under the Interstate bridge.
On the return, I stayed between the bridges as long as I could to stay out of the headwind, but finally cut under the westbound bridge and back out into the open bay. I just hunkered down and pushed ahead, not feeling I was getting into a very even rhythm having to fight the wind-induced chop. As I made it back to the put-in, my gator buddy had woken up and was there to greet me in a total time of 50:59.
posted by brint @ 10:57 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home