Communication

Have you ever said something, thought you were perfectly clear as to your intent and then the other person totally misunderstood what you were saying, misunderstood your intent? It's rather frustrating when it happens and really frustrating when it happens over and over again, regardless of how much care you may take. I have two bosses at work and I communicate very well with one of them and with the other it's kind of hit or miss. I can tell when my meaning is not being fully understood pretty quickly, her upper lip puckers up and begins to quiver ever so slightly, she gives the appearance of gotten a whiff of some really powerful stink. At that point I try to back peddle as best I can.

My situation at work isn't one I can just cut loose from. I really, really like my job and my bosses. I realize I need to work on my communication and just try to minimize the mis-communications as best I can. I found I was having similar difficulty with some of the folks over at SSP. One of the tasks I had taken on for the club was the dissemination of information from the folks running the club to the members of the club. It's something that groups can have difficulty with. I found myself venting to a couple of friends with more regularity than I liked about how communication was challenging in general and that I had felt the backlash of misunderstandings and mis-communications with greater and greater frequency. I kept saying, I'll give it one more year and see if things change if they don't I'm going to leave this club. Well, two instances of miscommunication occurred at the end of October/beginning of November and my patience snapped. I found a place to store my OC1 and contacted another club to see if I could join them and then quit SSP.

I have joined the Seattle Outrigger Canoe Club (SOCC) and have been very happy with my decision. I have no responsibilities other than to show up and paddle, help move the canoe into and out of the water, and maybe bail the canoe, but nothing else. It's nice and refreshing, relaxing even. I was surprised at how much tension I had locked up in my neck that immediately dissipated once I switched clubs. I really miss many of the SSP club members, but they are friends and we keep in touch, we'll have a nice little rivalry at the races this year.

Of course, I am unable to keep from helping out where I see a need. I don't have many other things occupying time in my life, why not throw myself into the outrigger world. Can you imagine my surprise to see my name put forth for the SOCC board position of secretary? I mean I knew that I offered to help out in any way the club could use me, but I was still tickled to see my name on the ballot. As I have seen no other names put forth I think chances are pretty darn high that I will be the new secretary of SOCC. So there you have it, I'm still paddling, just with a different group now.

Can I Get a Whoop! Whoop! for Seattle Harbor Patrol & Morgan

I didn't get much work done at home today. Not for lack of trying or desire, though. I just got hung up doing other stuff. I figured I'd have a good paddling practice and then be up working late tonight. Little did I know... We ended up with 7, but Tanja, not having a definite seat for the race Sat opted to head home and get out of the rain. That left us with Lianne, Meilee, Nancy, me, Jen, and Rives steering. And Clem went out on his OC1.

It was raining and quite windy. We headed out towards the dog park and around the point to the south. Once we made it around the point the swell really picked up, 1-2 ft, and washing over the bow and gunwales of the boat. Rives suggested that if it was feeling too gnarly we could turn around. Given my fall last Sat I gave her the signal to turn around after 5-10 minutes of going into that mess. Last time we were in wind like that I was leaning over towards the ama to help keep us stable and it really funked up my back, didn't want a repeat performance.

We made our turn and were headed back towards the point and we ended up beam to the swell. A wave picked up our ama and over we went before we realized it was happening! Wow, a huli in real life! I'd never done one in an OC6 outside the huli drills we have in the fall when the water is warmer. Everyone kept their heads, Jen gathered up the paddles. Nancy and I went to the off ama side of the boat. Lianne and Meilee pushed the ama up and Nancy and I pulled it back over. Then Lianne and Nancy got into the boat to start bailing. The only problem with that was every time they'd bail out a bucket full of water a wave would wash over the gunwale and replace twice as much!

I pulled out my cell phone in it's water proof bag and called Harbor Patrol, I have them on speed dial for just such situations. I'd hoped I'd never have to use it, though. They have to come over from Lake Union, about six miles or so. They said they were on their way and while we were waiting Lianne, Nancy, and Rives were in the submerged boat paddling gently trying to guide the boat towards shore. Clem had caught the bag with the pfd's, it would have floated off to Juanita otherwise. Finally the Harbor Patrol arrived, we were in the water around 30-40 minutes. Their faster boat was broken so they had to take the slower one, the inflatable zodiac type.

We got everyone into the Harbor Patrol boat and all the paddles. The guys tied a line to the OC6 and tried to tow it. Submerged as it was, with the wind and waves as they were, the boat was just not cooperating. They finally had to release the OC6 so they could get our shivering crew to shore. They promised they would come back for the boat and tow it over to the motor boat ramp at Magnuson Park. We were very reluctant to let it go, but, really, what choice did we have?

We got to SSP, waving to the kayakers who were looking quizzically at us. Their expressions said, 'um, aren't you missing something? a boat perhaps?' While the others dashed off to find warm, dry clothes I dashed off to find Morgan, the head of SSP and a pretty good guy. I told him we huli'd the OC6 and had to call Harbor Patrol. He asked why we didn't call him, he'd have come and rescued us. I said, "Honestly, I wasn't thinking that clearly, the Harbor Patrol number is at the top of my contact list, and without my glasses there was no way I could find your number." Living so nearby I often don't bring dry clothes down with me. Morgan lent me some ski pants and I had an extra fleece pull over in the car. A hot shower and dry clothes would have to wait until I got home.

We then set to figuring how to get the OC6 back to SSP. Our first plan was to hitch a trailer to Morgan's truck and load the boat onto it. A bunch of the kayakers offered to help us load even. By the time everyone had changed into dry clothes and gotten some hot tea from the SSP office the wind had completely died down. Morgan suggested we tow the boat back with one of the SSP motor boats. Seemed like a good idea to me.

I rode over with Morgan and Dave in the boat. Nancy & Mike drove Jen, Lianne, and Meilee over. Morgan rigged the lines to the OC6. Lianne sat 5 to steer, I sat 4 with the back up steering blade, and Meilee sat 3 and helped lean left to make sure we didn't huli again. Being towed back was really a lot of fun. At one point they started going a little fast-ish and we went off towards the right as if we were on a wakeboard, they slowed down after that. At one point it felt like they were trying to play crack the whip, Lianne was still trying to get things figured out though. After Lianne got the steering dialed in, we sped up again, this time she totally kept us in the middle! We got back to SSP, put the boat to bed, and headed out in search of hot showers and warm suppers.

Thanks everyone for keeping calm and cool under pressure. We were in a serious situation and we all kept our heads and worked together. It was key that we stayed with the boat, kept our paddles, and even though help was on the way we still worked towards saving ourselves. Had Harbor Patrol not made it we could have made it to shore, it would have taken a while and we'd have been a bit hypothermic, but we could have done it. Everybody made it back ok, the boat and paddles were all fine as well. Our only losses were 2 water bottles, a flip flop, a water shirt, and Nancy's GPS, not so bad, really.

Clean & Smells Good Too!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned Llelo's predilection for rolling in goose poop before. If not, well, now you know. I like to let the boys run around and sniff and pee while I'm getting the boat ready to paddle. There is quite a lot of water fowl (foul?) activity down at SSP and Llelo will, if given half a chance, both sample and roll in goose poop. The green staining and joyful expressions are a dead give away! Gus is the total opposite, when he sees any sort of feces he recoils a bit and I believe you can even see his nose wrinkle in disgust. I prefer that to Llelo's reaction.

Last Tuesday was a gangbuster day for him at the beach. He was racing around visiting everyone, playing with the other dogs, racing back to say hi to me and Gus ... During one of his visits I noticed no fewer than three green patches on his fur and a look of sheer bliss on his face. Both boys were in need of baths, Llelo's fun just meant they would get them tonight.

When we were nearly ready to launch the boat I caught Llelo and rinsed most of the poop off in the lake, he looked so sad, I was ruining all his fine work! It wasn't one of his best works, the car didn't reek when I got in. There have been times when the car smells nasty after I'm done paddling. Had a good paddle and nice long baths at home. They both smell so nice and their fur is so soft afterwards. Thursday evening I kept Llelo on leash down at SSP, it really put a damper on his fun.

Jericho 2008

Thankfully the beginning of the day was not a precursor of the activities to come. I'd planned to be up at 3:50 am, potty and feed the boys, shower, make coffee and have a light breakfast before leaving at 4:30 am to pick up Lise and meet our carpool at 5:00 am. Well, Lise called me at 5:00 and woke me up!!! Oh Shit! Hopped out of bed, dressed and was dragging the dogs out to potty as I was calling Troy, the carpool driver. My saving grace was the idjit who left his car and boat blocking the trailer egress down at SSP. I was out of the house, dogs feed and pottied, in 15 minutes! Got Lise and made it to SSP another 20 minutes after that. And the guys had just cleared the path for the trailer. We had 5 people in a Ford F150 crew cab. Troy and Patrick in the front seat, Lise, me, and Frank in the backseat. I took the hump seat as penance for my tardiness. We were on our way.

We stopped in Bellingham around 7:00 for gas, coffee, and pit stop and connected with Tom and Lianne, their son Kyle and dog Gibson. Then we caravaned to the border, a quick hello to the border guard and off to Vancouver. We arrived at Jericho beach around 9, unloaded the boats and set to rigging them. Jericho is on English Bay which opens into Howe Sound and the water has the potential for big waves, certainly bigger than we see in Lake Washington, so we needed to put on the spray skirts. They are similar to kayak spray skirts only bigger and a real pain to put on. And I needed to locate our steersperson. Kristen was unavailable for so she lined up Miranda McNamara from Jericho as her replacement.

The boats were ready and everyone was there so we got the boat down to the water. Our crew was Lianne in stroke (her first race ever), Rives, Nancy, Melissa, Lise, and Miranda steering. We headed out for a little warm-up and then set up for the start. And we're off! We started towards False Creek, around an inflatable bouy and then back towards Howe Sound. It was a very exciting turn, there were many boats clustering together for the turn and Miranda took a very aggressive line. At the turn there were two boats slightly ahead of us bumping each other a bit, our bow was just a little between them. We nudged the tail of the boat closest to the bouy and they spun out away from the bouy and in the process hit the boat they were next to and both boats went off totally away from the bouy and we were left with a nice clean turn! Wow, talk about an adrenaline push right at the start. You could hear those crews yelling at one another for a long time afterwards. Then it was a long push to the red bell can bouy, it felt like forever until we finally got there. We had clear water and as we were coming around Miranda cut us a bit close and then called Lianne and Rives to draw, that helps bring the nose of the boat around more quickly. We the wind was a bit stronger than she realized and we were closer to the bouy than expected and then there was that sickening, stomach clentching sound as the ama scraped/crunched along the bouy. Well, nothing we can do about it now, we have to get back in, time to dig deep and get us home.

We paddled hard until we heard the finish horn, done! It was a long, hard race, but we finished. We were 11th across the line and the 3rd master women's crew. Back on the beach we were able to take a look at the ama, it was split at the seam, about 5 inches long, and you can see a bit of the foam inside, there was also a bit of cracking on the top, too. It will take a bit of repair to make it watertight again, but the damage is all above the water line. In all we got off easy, one of the boats from Mt Home, a club down from Portland, had their ama damaged so badly at the start of the men's race they were taking on water during their race. Our men's A team (Doug, Clem, Than, Ed, Ryan, and Tom) were 4th across the line and took 3rd in open men's, our men's B team (Frank, Ernie, Patrick, Ken, Todd, and Troy) were the last men's crew to finish and were 10th in open men's. It was a good day racing in all.

Jericho has a yummy BBQ after the race. After the prizes were passed out we gathered our carpool and hit the road again. It took a while to get back to SSP and drop of the trailer and put the gear back into the container. I was off to drop Lise home a bit past 8 pm and home around 8:30 pm or so. A very long day, a very good day. Way to go SSPO!

muscle memory is a good thing

I went paddling tonight for the first time since I tweaked my back at the Lake Sammamish race on March 22. And looking at the calendar I have only paddled three times since March 15, between my back and slicing my hand open, dreaming about paddling is as close as I've gotten. My back seems to be doing much better and my hand is completely healed.

We had a good crew tonight, Lianne, Nancy, me, Kyle, Matt, and Neil steering. This was Kyle's second time paddling and Matt's first time, combined with my lack of paddling the last few weeks, I was hoping for a gentle workout. We headed out past the dog park and then south towards the 520 Bridge. It was a good workout, not too hard, and at our turn around point we saw a boat from Seattle Outrigger Canoe Club so we paused to say our hellos and talk about upcoming races.

Enough chatting, time to get head back to SSP. Neil did an excellent job giving tips to Matt and Kyle and guiding our workout. He was able to get us to step up our efforts in a positive manner that encouraged us (me anyway) to work harder. I was a little worried that I'd be so out of shape and have forgotten quite how to paddle. It seems muscle memory is stronger than my memory and it's, as they say, like riding a bike.

It was great to be back on the water after such a long time away, especially since the last winter series race is this Saturday. I plan to race, but I think I would best off cruising the race and trying to keep my back fit and healthy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be a slacker, I just don't want a repeat of what happened on Lake Sammamish.