The great sailboat migration

After yet another unseasonably cold and rainy weekend, many boaters called it quits. Yesterday, sailboats and tour boats streamed into the Calumet River en route to their dry docks.
We figured we'd follow them.
If you ever want to feel really small, try paddling in the Calumet River. Nearly everything there is on an enormous scale: piles of coke, stacks of aluminum ingots, mountains of salt, mammoth ocean-going ships, towering cranes, groaning bridges...it's almost overwhelming.

A tractor atop a mountain of salt.

Our VHF radios enabled us to listen in on the conversations between captains and bridge tenders. We watched as the railroad bridge near the Skyway lifted up to let some boats go by, then lowered to allow an Amtrak train to cross. We paddled next to tug boats and ore boats and enormous ocean-going ships.

Alec provides a sense of scale. This ship was headed to Duluth and then to Spain.

Some of the photos we took look like images from faraway lands. If you didn't know better, you might think this was an apartment complex somewhere in the former Soviet Union with snow-covered mountains in the bacgkground:

Stacks of aluminum ingots with a pile of salt in the background.

 There's something timeless about the Calumet River. If industry had emerged on Earth before nature, this would be a primordial land.

A relic of the days when giant machines roamed the Earth.

Calibrating our inner anemometers

When we were newer paddlers, our estimates of wave height and wind speed were quite unreliable. We simply didn't have enough experience to provide a frame of reference.
These days, we get a kick out of seeing how our estimates compare with hard data. Yesterday, we paddled out from the Wilson "launch ramps" (now the Mondog doggie beach) to the Montrose crib against quartering winds. Then we paddled directly into those winds back to Fullerton Avenue. We estimated that the winds were about 22 knots gusting to something like 28.
Sure enough, when we checked the data from the Harrison crib, the wind speeds at around 12:30 were 11.7 meters/second (23 knots) gusting to 13.9 meters/second (27 knots).
Because the wind was off-shore, the water was flat near the beaches. Three miles out, the waves were perhaps 2 to 3 feet.
Best of all, the sky was blue for one of the first times all month.

Adjusting to colder water and weather

Lake Michigan's surface water near Chicago dropped about 10 degrees over the past week. This morning's 19-knot winds beckoned, but the water temperatures whispered, "Bring your neoprene caps and poagies."
We suppose some people don't hear things like that.
After weeks of warm water, we were somewhat sad to find the lake back in the mid-50s. But hey, this is Chicago. And besides, our west coast friends consider temperatures like these normal.
We surfed and played a bit, then tried to convince one of the denizens of the doggie beach that we weren't deep sea aliens come to steal his tennis balls.
It's important, we figure, to get out on the water as the temperatures drop to soften the shock of winter's arrival. Poagies and all.

Short video: Launching into surf and wind

Here's a short video of Alec launching into the surf against a 28-knot headwind.

A wind that commands respect

"Let's paddle!" Alec is ready to go.

Yesterday, we planned to paddle the Calumet channel with legendary local paddler Erik Sprenne. The "legendary" part of his name comes from his 25-plus years as a whitewater instructor and river access advocate for the Chicago Whitewater Association. (Never mind that he lives in Indiana.)
We've long wanted to check out the Calumet, and we figured Erik was just the guy to show us the way. At the last minute, relative newcomer Aaron Litchfield joined us, too
Friday arrived with 25-plus-knot winds out of the north, steady rain and 5- to 7-foot waves. We met at Rainbow Beach on Chicago's South Side, still intending to paddle down to the channel. We assessed the waves from the beach, where they didn't look too intimidating, and launched into the surf and the wind.
The unrelenting waves and wind made progress difficult and communication nearly impossible, so we fought our way through the breaking waves and tucked in behind the water filtration plant breakwall to assess our options. This was no day for inland paddling, we decided. This was a day to be out on the lake.

Sharon paddling out. 

We decided to head out to the water intake crib--a crossing that would take less than 45 minutes on a calm day. The rain pelted our faces and the wind howled in our ears. The waves were steep and came in quick succession. 

Erik enjoying the bumpy ride (above) and Aaron at ease in rough seas (below).

It was a slog, but a fun challenge. As we paddled out, I (Sharon) thought about Paul Redzimski and Mike Agostinelli's ill-fated Lake Michigan crossing in 2006. They found themselves in conditions a little bit gnarlier than these when they were just three miles from their destination on this side of the lake and had to be rescued--but they had to deal with those conditions in the dark, with colder water, after 47 miles of paddling, and with one boat taking on water. And it occurred to me: That was exactly three years ago.

The rain pelted our faces as we padded into the wind.

After 90 minutes, we still hadn't reached the crib. The rain hadn't stopped. The wind was intensifying. The waves were building. But perhaps most importantly, we were getting hungry. That might have been more of an excuse than a reason, but we decided to begin the return trip.

 Up and over. When you see photos like these, don't forget that somebody had to stop paddling to take them. Thanks, Alec.

We flew back to the beach, dragged the boats onto the shore and hid behind the beach house to eat some lunch. We looked over to see that the water flowing down toa ledge from a puddle in the parking lot was being propelled back up by the wind. When we lifted our boats onto our racks, they nearly blew back down. This was a wind that commanded respect.

Aaron, Alec and Erik enjoying a well-earned lunch.

We decided to let the wind do its thing in peace. As we drove away, we appreciated the simple things in life: the heating in the car, the tea in our thermoses, and the luxury of being able to go out on an otherwise miserable day and have a great time on the water.

From Erik's GPS. We traveled only 6.15 miles in 2.5 hours

(Note that the water intake crib is missing from Google Earth.)

Catching the surf after the storm

The two days after the storm passed offered nice waves.  The winds veered north and blew pretty steadily overnight, creating nice 4- to 6-foot waves. We enjoyed some good surfing at the beach and rough water paddling where the waves reflected off the end of the pier.
Our friend Keith Wikle has an excellent explanation of when to catch post-storm waves on the Michigan side of the Lake Michigan and why. Check out his post, "How to predict good surfing weather on the Great Lakes," here.

If 40-knot gales aren't enough for you....

...how about gusts to 50?

Thar she blows!

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, has a dry sense of humor as befits federal agency whose name sounds the same as that of the only guy who survived a flood of Biblical proportions. But its current statement, by NOAA standards, is positively hysterical:

"Gale force," in this instance, means 40 knot winds. (One knot is 1.15 miles per hour, so 40 knots is about 46 mph.)  If you want to know what that looks like, check out the Great Lakes Coastal Forecasting System: 

That's right; the forecast for Monday includes 16-foot waves on the Michigan side of the lake--a prospect exciting enough that Chicago paddlers are already arranging carpools.
Meanwhile, consider this fair warning that our days of warm surface water are numbered.

Serious butt-in-boat time

We love playing in the waves and practicing rescues, but last Friday we decided to simply paddle. In fact, we decided to paddle from Evanston to Indiana and just glide by Chicago's entire shoreline.

Hello, Chicago. Sharon paddles by without stopping.

We put in at Juneway Terrace Beach (technically a block south of Evanston) around 10 a.m. and headed south. We passed the familiar beaches of Chicago's north side--Leone, Wilson, North Avenue--and the still-quiet harbors--Montrose, Belmont, Diversey. By noon, we were around Navy Pier, and boat traffic was picking up. We exchanged greetings with visitors on the tour boats and paddled on.

Still life with Alec and tour boats.

As we got to Hyde Park, the wind and waves were picking up. We continued on, past Rainbow Beach, past the water filtration plant, to the Calumet channel.

The smokestacks of Indiana are closer and more beautiful than ever....or something like that.

That's when we realized we didn't have time for the final two miles. We had arranged to meet our kids back at 63rd Street at 5:30. So we turned around and paddled those last couple of miles in the wrong direction (from a making-it-to-Indiana perspective) but the right direction (from a meeting-our-kids perspective).

Arriving in the 63rd Street harbor.

We learn something every time we get on the water. This time, we learned that some of our clothing causes chafing, that it's easy to forget to take enough photos, and that it's fun, once in a while, to paddle past Chicago without setting foot on shore.

Stuff we love, part two: Cags!

Of all the regular denizens of our day hatches, one has a special place on our gear list: the cag.

Sharon models a cag.

Its formal name is "caguole," a British term for a lightweight anorak. (An anorak is a hooded parka but, interestingly, also a British term for a person who is obsessively involved in a hobby. Hmmm.....)
The cags we carry are lightweight, hooded garments with a bungee hem that can sretch to fit over a cockpit coaming. We've only used them once on the water when a student seemed to be getting hypothermic, but we frequently pull them out on land and often put them on people who are getting cold and miserable. They fit everybody and have room for everything they might be wearing, including a PFD.
The effect is immediate, thanks to the combination of windbreaking and solar heating (particularly with our black one).
We could go on and on about how much we love our cags, but we don't want to be anoraks.

Taking advantage of a wavy day

Mariners and coastal dwellers consider nor'easters trouble. Paddlers on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan consider them a gift.
The forecast for today was NE winds 15 to 25 miles per hour and waves 4 to 6 feet building to 5 to 7. That's the kind of geeky weather detail that lights up the message boards and clogs up bandwith on Chicago paddlers' iPhones.
So yeah, we went down to the doggie beach/water trail launch site at Montrose. The waves were big, frequent and chaotic. But the water was still warm and friendly, so in addition to playing in the waves, we took the opportunity to practice swimming our boats in to shore.
We knew (or believed) a few things going into this: That boats travel more slowly upside-down than right-side-up, that you always stay upwave of your boat, that it's best to hold the end toggle and avoid putting a finger inside the loop, that anything loose would soon be gone, that breaking waves would cause the boat to lurch.
Some observations:
- Even though Alec was prepared for the boat to lurch in larger breaking waves, one wave managed to tug it out of his grip. It tumbled upright and waited for him and he was able to catch up with it.
- Sharon found it best to swim off to the side behind the boat so that she wasn't hit in the face or thrown on top of it by a breaking wave.
- Alec found that holding the paddle was easier if he kept it below the surface of the water.
Both of us were surprised by our lack of desire to come out of our boats in breaking waves. It seemed to go against everything we've worked on--the ability to stay in our boats and in control, particularly in challenging conditions.
But that's exactly why we did it, so that if it happens in the future unintentionally, we'll have some experience to fall back on.

Woof!

A weekend without kayaks

This past weekend we headed up to Devils Lake, Wisconsin. We didn't bring boats. We didn't bring bikes. We didn't even bring camping gear. But we did bring family: the four of us, plus Alec's parents and his brother and sister-in-law.

Devil's Doorway. Alec's brother and sister-in-law are in the foreground.

An opportunity to take photos with a non-waterproof camera.

We stayed in the lovely Willowood Inn, hiked in the park, played lawn games (bocce, horseshoes, baggo, ladderball), and indulged our love of exploration.

Hannah samples the local flora: a morel mushroom, sort of.

Alec and Hannah playing bocce with Alec's mother and father.

Travel has always been a way for us to reconnect. We go somewhere with a plan; some of it works and some of it doesn't. Everybody has to be flexible and figure things out together. And in the process, we discover things about the place we're visiting and about ourselves.

On the way home, we stopped at Dr. Evermor's Art Park.

Hannah cuddles up to a scrap metal creature.

We all prowled the scrap yard next door.

We've included this post even though it isn't about paddling because travel, exploration and self-discovery are ( as it says in our blog tagline) "related passions."

Rough water weekend

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, here's a 3,000-word story:

Rainy day paddle

The forecast today was rain and waves. So as soon as the kids left for school, we packed up and headed to Montrose beach to paddle with Scott Fairty. This wasn't supposed to be a paddling day, but you don't just let 2- to 4-foot waves get away unsurfed.

Guess which car is ours.

Synchonized paddling?

The waves were rolling in nicely at the beach, but the area just north was chaos. Waves were hitting the "sheet piling" (shoreline retaining walls) and bouncing back, creating surf in both directions and at times meeting and combining to create waves twice as large.

Going....

Going...

Gone!

Waves like these can be intimidating. They may be more of a challenge to your confidence than they are to your skills.
Paddling in conditions like these, we realize how well our kayaks handle chaotic waves if we let them. Sometimes we just bob around in confused conditions without bracing to see how little we really need to do. But today, some bracing was necessary.
Forecast for tomorrow:

See you tomorrow, Scott?

Sharon out to sea.

Stuff we love, part one: Sun protection!

One of the tricky aspects of kayaking is protecting yourself from the sun. We slather on the sunscreen and SPF lip balm, and we still get burned. We're simply exposed to too many hours of direct sunlight.
This summer, each of us discovered a favorite garment that kept us happily protected day after day in the sun.
For Alec, it was the long-sleeved Kokatat Destination Paddling Shirt. It worked exceptionally well protecting him from the sun from the wrists up and had good underarm mesh ventilation. The surprise was that it kept him comfortably cool in hot weather and didn't cool him off too much in cooler weather. (We've both discarded polypro shirts that failed too miserably in one or the other of these situations.) And it looked pretty darn presentable at the end of the day.

The long-sleeved Destination Paddling Shirt proved more versatile than we expected.

For Sharon, it was the Destination Hand Covers. These inexpensive mitts (about $13) fully protect the backs of your hands but don't interfere with your grip on the paddle. One of our paddling friends was skeptical that they'd stay on in surf. But when Sharon pitchpoled her boat later that day, she lost her sunglasses but not her hand covers.

The mitts stayed on and stayed out of the way.

The sun-protection challenge we haven't yet solved is our lips. Even high-SPF lip balm doesn't seem to do the trick. Sharon has taken to applying regular sunscreen that contains titanium dioxide, but even that hasn't proven sufficient. Anybody found a good way to keep from burning their lips? Please let us know.

Rough water rescue practice

North winds at last! The forecast was 3- to 5-foot waves, so we hastened to the lake. This time we wore drysuits, only to find that some of the surface water had returned and the water was relative balmy--somewhere in the mid-60s.
We love practicing rescues, but don't often have an opportunity to try them in the conditions in which we're most likely to need them. (Especially this year, when we've had very few big wave days.) So we took turns putting each other and ourselves back in our boats.

Alec and Hannah complete a t-rescue.

Alec completes a scramble (cowboy) self-rescue.

Every time we do this, we are struck by how well these rescues work in conditions, but how essential it is to move quickly and hold on to everything (boats, paddles, people). We typically teach rescues in calm conditions in which paddlers are unlikely to capsize and try to convince our students that in real conditions, any lapse of attention can lead to serious complications. If the rescuer lets go of the casualty's boat, it can whip away in the wind. If the casualty lets go of his or her boat or the rescuer's deck lines, they can quickly be separated. If anybody lets go of a paddle, they may never see it again. Working on rescues in real conditions is the best test of your technique.