I got out for a paddle this morning since it was quite warm and I didn't need to be at work. It ended up being a short paddle (~45 minutes) since the wind came up pretty strong, but it was good to be out on the water. It was a really nice start with no wind at all. Later when the wind came up I was enjoying the challenge and the waves, but being out on the water alone in 0°C weather with strong gusting winds removed the margin of safety that I want to keep at all times when I paddle.
PalYbro, an acquaintance on Twitter, spotted me while he was biking down the Broadway bridge and posted this short video clip:
(Follow the link to see the tweet & the video since embedding here doesn't seem to be working.)
Here are a few photos and a short video from my outing.
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| Dead calm on the water before I set off. (Glad to see the newly applied Princess Auto reflective decal is doing such a good job of reflecting the camera flash. The decals are applied to both sides of both blades, vertical on the power face, horizontal on the backside.) |
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| Ready to seal launch. Unfortunately, someone's been doing too good of a job of clearing the snow and sanding the boat launch. That made for a less than smooth slide down onto the water. |
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| Getting closer to the point where I turned around. The wind is coming up a bit, but is still fairly mild. Plus, it was a tail wind. |
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| On my way back to the start. Snow pelting me giving a nice snowy look to the event. |
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| Things were starting to get pretty fun. The wind came up quite a bit more than you can see from the photo, but I was busy paddling, not taking pictures with my phone. :) |
Now I'm off to Victoria in a few days for a family vacation and I intend to do some paddling while there. I'll be packing my drysuit for sure!
By the way, this paddle amounts to at least 16 months of paddling at least once a month, all in Saskatchewan. Assuming that I get out again in March, this will be the 2nd winter in a row where I paddled outdoors at least once a month all winter.
