And Maggie over lunch one day, took a cruiser with all hands, apparently to make him give it back – Roger Waters

Some days you just have little to say. So I let a few days pass to see if something would come. Nope! Oh, well, “To everything there is a season”. Some days you have something of value to add to a conversation and some days you should just keep your silly mouth shut. BUT as my European friends like to point out, Americans can’t keep quiet, we will just keep right on talking even if we have nothing worth saying. So with that in mind. . .

I did manage to get out on Devil’s Lake yesterday in some darned heavy winds. No one wanted to brave Lake Michigan and I don’t blame them. But if you can get 2 ft waves on our little lake that’s close to a miracle and certainly not to be missed. So I spent a couple hours Sunday rolling and bracing in the machine gun rhythm of steep flat faced waves on a small lake in central Wisconsin. I don’t think there was much more than 5 ft between crests which can really bat you around. When rolling in those conditions you have to be a bit patient especially when rolling up into the waves. If you try to come right back up you are usually catch your boat going down the next wave and your paddle does not easily find the surface. You need to just hold still long enough to get a feel for the rhythm and come up quick on the back end when your recovery side is angled to the surface. Or you can just skip the whole thing and quickly scull back up. But then again, what fun would that be??

This morning I was up at 5am and on the lake at 6. I’ve been putting a lot of time into the “hanging draw” recently and this morning was the first time I felt like I could repeat the maneuver on a regular basis without turning the boat. The hanging draw is sort of hard to explain in text. I saw in a recent discussion on Paddlewise that some folks described the move as a “side slip” which probably gives you a better visual cue. Anyway the point is to move the boat sideways wile (whilst??) keeping forward momentum WITHOUT turning the boat. Frankly there are major “cool” points if you can get this one down. It looks Soooo SWEEEEET!

Here is how the BCU describes it;

“With the kayak moving forward at a good speed, the paddle should be placed out to the side, level with or just behind hip, The kayak should move sideways without the paddle moving in relation to the boat, or the kayak turning. (It may be necessary for the bow to be held at a slight angle away from the paddle.)”

My experience in my NDK Explorer is that the paddle position is just behind the knee. For many of these kinds of maneuvers you will find paddle placement depends on the boat, displacement, conditions etc. Another key to this move is the old standby TORSO ROTATION. Yes, I know. . . All the world’s problems can be solved by good torso rotation. That whole Falklands Islands thing back in the 80′s could have been avoided if Galtieri would have just put more time into working on good torso rotation instead of spending so much time staring longingly out to sea. (Sorry for that little southern-hemispheric, quasi-historical aside) The problem is that those of us with thicker middle areas can find torso rotation difficult in normal situations, let along when on the move. Luckily I’ve found that you need not twist until your eyes bug out, just enough to get the paddle into a good vertical position in line with the boat. I’ve been dropping the paddle vertically into a neutral position and then opening it up while paying attention to how my boat responds. This usually gives me a hint if I need to go forward or back with the paddle before the boat over reacts to the blade.

On a silly note; I finally got my new license plate for the Jeep! I think we waited about 6 months for the things to show up. One nice bit is that I will actually be able to remember my license plate number!

It’s exactly one month from my trip to Michigan. But more on that later. . .

-dm