Century Club: Tim Ford

Yeah, it was a bit nippy.  Air temp in the upper 30s but it was the puffs to 35 that made it slightly less comfortable. Peak gust at Gibson Island was 43.

Around the point, I had to convince 12-15 turkey vultures that I wasn't dead.  I don't think I've ever elicited such a warm response from buzzards and from such a large flock...assuming buzzards flock . I guess they were just desparate. 

[Edit: a group of buzzards in-flight is called a "kettle" of buzzards]

These winter low tides expose a lot of neat stuff, like this ancient pier hardware that made a nifty "kayak slip" in which to eat lunch. Folks at PSA know a lot more about this than I do, but apparently the structure is from an old alum mine (google: alum) and it's noted in an 1829 issue of American as probably being owned by Richard Caton. Anyway, thanks to the folks 200 years ago for setting up a pleasant, sunny and wind-protected lunch spot!

Also: almost got my remore bilge leak detector working...almost. 

Man, I struck out last year.  A palty 80 days!  OK, such is life.

AFTER a having the flu for the holidays, I hadn't been down to the boat in quite a while and I was worried about the windy and gale conditions that had occured during my protracted illness.

Turned out everything was fine, very little chafe on the lines, but I did install a bit of anti-chafe material at selected pionts should anything in the 30-50 mph range show up in the next month or so...I don't think it will but I mean, it is winter.

Got a super nice paddle in though! Very low tide and I did see something of interest on shore this time.  It looked like the lid to a burial device had become exposed on shore!  Then I thought, who the heck would bury someone that close to the water's edge?  Turned out it was just the lid to a dock box or possibly a cockpit locker on a large boat.  Fine with me, I needed a dead body like i needed another bout of some god-awfu winter pathogen. 

2026!  Let the games begin!

I needed to take the porta-potty off of RAINBOW and also check a recently deceased club member's boat (R.I.P. Glenn!). The air temp had warmed up to a balmy 27 degrees and it was 31 F below decks on RAINBOW.

Of course, the potty had a big chunk of ice in it, but had not cracked (thank god).

Took a quick paddle out to Cedar Island and ate lunch with the nose of the 'yak on the beach. Somehow my approach to this spot went unnoticed by a huge, old Great Blue heron and the stupid thing launched, very noisily, from a nearby branch about 12 feet away from me.  Almost needed a change of underwear...

In spite of the temperatures usually associated with this event, I love the EYC Leftover Bowl.  It's one of my favorite events, mostly due to how festive and affable everyone is at the party.  EYC does a terrific job of this. We took first place and had two kids under 9 years old on board.  They were troopers and were our spokepersons for thanking the RC boat profusely. All-in-all, it was cold, but the breeze shifted around to the south for the delivery back to the Magothy and it felt much warmer than last year's trip home. Thanks a million to the Incommunicado folks for having me aboard.