PADDLING

Have been busy paddling in the outrigger and only 3 days a week on running not anything serious averaging only 12 k.m per run and then its mostly on the road , so I still get a bit of a workout. Paddling on Sunday I was sitting in the second seat  so you watch these huge waves coming towards you and you paddle through them with the Alma hitting the opposite wave , sometimes its higher then the boat and sometimes lower but always riding the wave your running into or the wave that is beside the outrigger  but you always keep one eye on the paddler in front of you so that you keep the same stroke and rhythm reaching out and twisting your body sideways so that you are not pulling with your arms and shoulders all the time , always making sure the paddle is  more in then out of the water.  Keeping the paddle in the water gives the outrigger more stability, we have had some wavy conditions with waves well over six  foot , at times it seems your straddling two huge wave and your sitting up there trying to reach down so that your paddle will reach the water to keep the motion of the boat going One person not paddling makes a big difference we were already paddling with one man short, when paddling through these swells I lean  towards the Alma because most of the time it seems that the light weights are paddling on one side and the heavier  paddler's are on the other side, so you always  kind off keep an eye out to the alma side, Sunday morning one of the boats had an close call you could see the paddler's pushing down on the alma making sure that the boat wouldn't tip over. The outriggers can go over quit easy as we found out last Saturday as one paddler , paddling down the Gorge in Victoria harbour  let go of his paddle and tried to reach back and crab his paddle only a few inches out of his reach and the sixty foot outrigger tipped over an all six men were in the water , too much weight on one side, Here the water was flat not like the waves we had paddling to Snake Island on Sunday. Its probably a good thing we turned back it was rough out there and it is a lot nicer to ride the waves back to shore.