Pea soup fog today, so I didn’t paddle on the last day of my two-week vacation at the beach in South County, Rhode Island. We rent a cottage at the tip of Great Island in Point Judith Pond. I can walk out my door put my boat in the water.
This is pretty much the only time that I paddle in salt water, and I get lots of practice paddling in wind and waves. I spend a lot of time on Point Judith Pond, but there are lots of other great places to paddle – like the Harbor of Refuge, the Narrows, Dutch Island, Jamestown Harbor, and Wickford. The weather wasn’t the best with lots of early morning wind and fog, so it was a little tougher to get out into more open water alone in my open boat. We had some amazing waves at Bevertail and Point Judith - didn’t paddle those.
I paddled 12 out of 14 days - not bad. All the trip reports are here:
Sounds like you had a great time. My one time closest to being the subject of a newspaper story, along with 3 friends, was a “quick paddle” around Dutch Island. Port Judith is lively.
@Celia said:
My one time closest to being the subject of a newspaper story, along with 3 friends, was a “quick paddle” around Dutch Island. Port Judith is lively.
You can paddle to Dutch Island the easy way across Dutch Harbor from Jamestown (which is what I did), or the hard way across the West Passage of Narragansett Bay. Either way it is only about a mile so it might look like a quick paddle, but the condition couldn’t be more different. When I was out there were 1-foot rollers on the the protected harbor side, and 3-foot rollers on the west passage side. It definitely got my attention as I came around the point to paddle up the west side - and that was a relatively calm day. Alone in an open boat, I am pretty careful about where I paddle. This whole part of the Rhode Island coast is absolutely beautiful, but deserving of respect. Point Judith itself is amazing, even on a relatively calm day… https://vimeo.com/281236224
We were just exhausted, all 4 of us, after a weekend in surf at the Narrows. Ma Nature did not give us an easy weekend. Then the two us, my husband and, with more time in situations like that failed to object to opinions of the other two who we thought knew more. Decision making was not at the best.
So the wind came up way bigger than we would have decided to try for the run around Dutch had we employwd half a brain.
Lesson learned. I have since been willing to pull the plug when needed.
I can see that happening. For sea kayakers that is not a long trip, but when the wind and the waves come up - look out. Glad it worked out.
I"m sitting here trying to figure out how ambitious I am to go paddling today. Options are surfing at the Narrows (fun, but I was just there), Pemi in NH (long drive and the level is dropping), or Tville in CT (go there all the time). Or I could just stay home…
I’m sitting here trying to figure out how ambitious I am to go paddling today.
I decided to go back to the Narrow River yesterday to do some surfing at the Narrows. We put in at the Pollock Avenue boat ramp and paddled down to the beach. I surfed a few waves, and did a pretty good job of staying upright and leaning into the waves when I got turned sideways, but the boat still filled with water making it impossible to paddle. No pictures of me surfing, but a few other pictures here:
Who says that you can’t take a canoe in the ocean…
Having said that, I tend to stay in protected waters unless conditions are really calm. Last year the bay was dead flat so I could pretty much go any where I wanted. This year it was rocking and rolling, so I was more limited.
At some point I will probably buy a sea kayak - crazy not to where I live.
Canoes can work on the ocean in the right hands. As kayamedic has pointed out, the Maine Island Trail was initially conceived of when canoes would be a primary craft. Some years ago a couple of guys did a portion of the trail in one of the wettest weeks in a while even for Maine. They stayed over Ames Island for a couple of nights, they were traveling in a canoe pretty well rigged out, like had a sail.
But… I have to say that by and large the paddlers l have seen in a canoe half a mile or so from mainland on the ocean are a step up from the average paddler in a kayak.
Many moons ago when I lived in FL I played in the surf some and paddled out past the breakers. it was very hard not to swamp coming in on a breaker. Spent a good bit of time emptying the canoe. It was easier to keep the water out while paddling out. It was always 2 of us in a tandem back then.
Just came back from a conference at Martha’s Vineyard. (My first time there, with all my years in MA.) There are quite a number of large “salt ponds” that are protected from open ocean. Rec boats, SOTs and canoes predominated. I didn’t see any “seakayaks.” Even on the “open ocean” on the north side, the water was pretty flat. The south side has some wave action. Wished I had my waveski for that.
Going over from New Bedford through Woods Hole, the tide was ripping. Saw some cool standing waves. Now, that looked like serious play opportunities for seakayaks.
Woods Hole? Major thrills. Especially since the slack part of the tide changeover is all of 20 minutes because it is so shallow. Can kill a lot of calories going thru that, and the haystacks are a hoot.
Only a couple of cautions based on Jim and l being in a small group there some yrs ago. One is that landing on the other side from Woods Hole can be tricky if you play by all the rules. While we got away with it and trusted the leaders, we found out later that all those lovely deserted beaches on the island are very much privately owned. You could get kicked off if pulled in to catch your breath. The other is, if it is still running, the fast ferry. It is very fast and it doesn’t slow,down for anything.
But yeah, if you can sort out the launch and landing parts, and avoid any,need to be rescued, the channel by Woods Hole is a lot of fun.
@castoff said:
Many moons ago when I lived in FL I played in the surf some and paddled out past the breakers. it was very hard not to swamp coming in on a breaker. Spent a good bit of time emptying the canoe. It was easier to keep the water out while paddling out. It was always 2 of us in a tandem back then.
I did some surfing with my solo boat at the Narrow River. It was much easier to keep water out of the boat paddling out through the waves than surfing in on them. Surfing in I would eventually get turned sideways, and the boat would fill up with water. Surf a wave, empty the boat. Surf a wave, empty the boat. I got sick of that quick.
@Celia said:
Canoes can work on the ocean in the right hands. As kayamedic has pointed out, the Maine Island Trail was initially conceived of when canoes would be a primary craft.
But… I have to say that by and large the paddlers l have seen in a canoe half a mile or so from mainland on the ocean are a step up from the average paddler in a kayak.
I’d do it in a minute if I had someone with me capable of helping me get back in the boat. The sea kayak group in my local club has weekly rescue practice. I should bring my canoe some night.
@eckilson Bring your canoe to the sea kayak group and make them rescue you. It is doable but takes a slightly different approach, like taking the canoe fully over the rescuer’s boat. I have done it with a pretty heavy wood canoe in a very low volume boat and it is awkward. But it was good for me.
