Century Club: Tim Ford

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

Number of days:

1 day

Forecast was wind south, 10 kn gusts to 15. Well that didn't happen. I paddled to the very back of the creek where strainers block any further progress, flipping a surface lure thinking maybe a channa or yellow perch might be hungry and sunning itself in shallow water. Nope.

But paddling back out toward open water, it looked a little different and once I cleared the windbreaks on shore, it was more like "holy crap, this isn't 10-15."

From 1430 hrs on it blew 20-25 kn and there was a puff at Gibson Island to 30 (mph). So the paddle back was a chore but no biggie.

Then I decided to use the wooded point south of PSA (we need to name that point) as a shelter to see what the breeze was like on the windy side of the woods. It was honking, and breaking waves from the little stone breakwater meant a lot of water was rushing over the shallow beach. That's a playground for kayaking. Between the wind and the current, it was fun to paddle as hard as possible and make little or no progress.

Seemed like fun for a few minutes...this morning, the day after? Not so much.

Saturday, March 21, 2026

Number of days:

1 day

March 21 - Boat Work Day

the official buffing of the blades
Le Déjeuner sur Le Bateau
smoothness follows

Unveiling the INC for some work up top, primary and secondary winch overhaul, while simultaneous bottom perfection is achieved. Work on OPBs always reminds me that I need to do my own boat...and also how fewer systems make that task a lot easier. Still, one of these days I gotta get on it.

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Number of days:

1 day

March 10 - 80 degrees of chores

Warm day, 80 degrees, to get stuff done. Got the O/B on board with help of a clubmember who really knows the drill when it comes to lifting something heavy on to a moving target. Let's put it this way, it went a whole lot better than it did last year (see August 4, 2025).

Splashed the dinghy and rowed for the exercise and also to take a sight line down the row of moorings. Mine, E-4, is slighty shifted south and might need to be dragged north a few yards, to maintain distance from whomever is moored on F-4.

Dinghy still did not leak.

Friday, March 6, 2026

Number of days:

1 day

Feb 6 - Fog

Nice long kayak outing in the fog. Loved hearing the mournful sign of a ship's foghorn as it transitted the Craighill channel headed north. I don't know the benthic chemistry that made all the iron landen in the sediments pop out visually over the icy months of 2026, but boy has it ever. I increased the colour saturation a little, in the photo, to make the point, but I've never seen the creek indicate so much Fe on the bottom before.

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Number of days:

1 day

Feb 25 - finally out

Ice is gone and I finally got a kayak outside the cove. It was sunny and high tide, so I figured pickerel would be hungry and on the prowl after a few weeks of ice covered, sunless misery. Not so. I tried shallow water, medium depth water and deep water. Nothin'.

Which was fine with me.

Saturday, February 21, 2026

Number of days:

1 day

Feb21 - Almost there

Killing time before the club's Chili Contest and also the Spinsheet Century Club and Racing Team Party, I wanted to check the dinghy for any immediate threats to life and personal property and to my amazement, there were no leaks. Which is weird because I'm pretty sure there were the last time I used it, last fall. I do need to cut out and replace that nasty centerboard slot though. Another project.

I decided to row the dink out to where the lead to open water through the ice cuts off. A good thing is that there were only 30-40 feet of ice left (preventing escape). [Edit: today it's completely gone! ]

Tomorrow could be the first time out of the cove for an honest paddle in over five weeks and I am READY.

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Number of days:

1 day

Feb 19 - still no where to go

Frustrating kayak ride. There's open water farther out in the creek, toward the mouth, but it's just too much trouble and too dangerous to try to reach it. At least for me. I bashed through some thicker stuff in the effort, but there was frozen stuff that was too thick and too narrow to get the 30-40 yards I needed to make a safe portage for the rest of the way. So I bailed.

The plan was to wait for the tide to come back in and then maybe there would be enough depth to proceed farther along shore. But with the flood came the rain and by 1530 hrs it was just too miserable to give it another go. Maybe on Saturday!

Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Number of days:

1 day

Feb 17 - Going posthole

big ole carp
no lead for you
looks open but it weren't...

A lot of us have learned the term "post-holing" in the past three weeks, whether getting the mail out of the box or taking the trash out or going for a winter hike. One minute you are cruising along on top of the icy crust, the next second you've punched thru into powder, slush or icy water.

I chose icy water.

No big deal, as I had purposefully stayed within a few feet from shore, so the water was mid-shin. But having a boot full of ice water was...ummm...unpleasant. All this was on a quest to get the kayak into open water. I figured I could slide the thing about 50 yards to where there was a new lead into ice-free territory.

The ice seemed fine, until it wasn't. Lesson learned: don't be so smug when you see the news footage of some poor smuck getting rescued from icy water. And thank your guardian angels who let you survive when you solo'ed, 4 decades ago, out on to the Big Lake in Columbia in the early hours before the HoCo cops showed up with bullhorns.

Later on, when the crowds thinned out, a big carp swam lazily under the boat. Then it stopped a few feet away and let me get ridiculously close. I guess it was cold and lethargic.

Friday, February 13, 2026

Number of days:

1 day

Feb 13 - path /no path

Thought I could get to open water by beaching the kayak and dragging it out to the point. In the first 60 seconds I had two very wet feet. Turns out the path wasn't on thick ice but thick slush covered by a half inch of overnight freeze. So it was a short kayak excursion.

Also had to re-run a fender. I've never seen one fail like this before. UV fatigue I guess?

Hiked a trail to the back of the creek. The ice was plenty thick to venture out on and even if I punched through it would be about knee deep (not counting another foot of mud I'd need to deal with getting out...)

Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Number of days:

1 day

Feb 11 - Check your boat!

street legal
high water mark
back on her lines after pump out

I got to the club around 1100 hrs and immediately another member approached me and said "come look at this." Someone's boat was sinking in the slip.

I guess what happened was something frozen had finally melted, allowing the surrounding creek ingress. Water was at least 18 inches over the floorboards and almost up to the fids on the berths. We boarded cautiously, not knowing if the sheer amount of water below was enough to slosh to one side or the other and capsize the vessel.

Deploying an electric submersion pump lowered the level significantly in 30-45 minutes. We monitored the bilges for the next three hours and while the water level did rise a little, we figured it might just be from the compartments and hatches slowly emptying.

Point here is: it has been a long sub-freezing spell and it is certain that this will not be the only boat in distress over the next week or so, as temperatures stay above freezing for a while. This could happen to anyone! So check your boat and check your bilge pump!

Otherwise, a nice,very short kayak ride allwoing me to get the new DNR stickers on the boat, so I'm street legal for a couple of years...I guess.

Century Club: Tim Ford

Pages