Kayak Canoe Alabama

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Apalachee River to Causeway 2005 XVII

Saturday, April 2, 2005 brint.adams@us.army.mil

Following the extreme rainfall and winds over the past two days, this morning remained very windy with about a 20 mph wind coming out of the Northwest. At 7:30 AM, the temperature was a warm 65 degrees with high humidity. The tide was low, but rising, which made for an interesting conflict to start out paddling east into a rising tide with the wind to my back.

I started out riding one foot rollers down Pass Picada, but since I was paddling against the rising tide, only made the turnaround at Apalachee River in 7:15. On the return paddling through the same rollers, I made the parking lot in 16:20, and came out into the open water at the base of Chacaloochee Bay. The rollers increased in size to about 2 feet as I fought my way to the Causeway culverts. The water was very "confused" there, as I headed on towards the Interstate bridges. My split there was an extremely slow 37:04, as I tried to hide in the saw grass out of the wind.

On the return, I tried to use the wind to my back as an advantage and surf the waves back. I thought it was helping, but without a steady rhythm and just trying to stay upright, it was futile to try and improve my overall time. I came in to the parking lot in an overall slow time of 55:34, while it seemed like I had paddled about another mile further. I had a spectator section awaiting my return, as Paul and his young daughter had stopped to watch the birds in the bay before going for breakfast. Paul looked to be recovering nicely from his night-walking episode on the Jug Lake platform two weeks ago.

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