No pix, better that way!

Took a kayak lesson today to learn edging and bracing and strokes. Took a swimming lesson too! One water bottle added to the quickmud bottom of Redwood City Harbor, but all else is still with me, other than my dignity. Humbling....but entertaining. At least I did learn a few things and had more hours in a full size sea kayak. But I still have no idea which one to purchase eventually, because it's abundantly clear to me what I have yet to learn. Ah well....

Toolin' Around Foster City

A drop dead gorgeous day on the lagoons! Warm to hot, just enough light breeze to keep cool, but not wind. MAG and I paddled about and met Stanley in his canoe. I was trying out my DIY panning motor on the Gopro. For a change, it didn't work well. Not sure that's about, but we'll see. And, yes, i do need to aim it higher! Meantime, the water was absolutely terrific.

Testing Out DIY Fast Panning Motor for Gopro

Inspired by some of the fabulous kayaking videos from Gnarlydognews.blogspot.com , I decided to try to rig up a fast 360 degree panning motor for my Gopro. He has some great shots where the camera pans in under a minute a full circle, so you start looking forward toward the bow, turn to see him paddling, then turn back to the bow. Unfortunately, all the DIY instructions I could find for cheap panning devices were for timelapse photos, that is, a full circle in an hour! Not for what I intended at all. After much searching I stumbled upon small music box movements that wind up (no batteries or wires to contend with), then turn back. Found one inexpensively and rigged up all sorts of mounts to make it work with my rig. It's not perfect, but for $15 worth of materials and a bit of head scratching, I have something that does the trick. See below (though an unglamorous shot of my overgrown, under-cared-for back yard.)

What thunderstorm?

Time to keep doubting the weatherman! They kept predicting thunderstorms, but we had a brilliantly beautiful morning. Warm and mild wind. Bay Area Slough paddlers joined me in canoes. Wouldn't you have liked to be have been there?

So I love my grandson! One year old. Amazing.

Ides of March Princeton Harbor Paddle

Great late winter paddle in Princeton Harbor/Pillar Point area of Half Moon Bay.

Started out foggy, got very windy outside the inner harbor area. I had to high tail it back to the inner harbor when the 8-10 mph winds were kicking up the waves to the point that I was concerned about handling my little boat. Once back in the harbor, all was well, sun came out. Go figure!

Nice folks to paddle with, the Sacramento Paddle Pushers Meetup group. I've paddled with various of them several times before and always had a good time.

Not a lot of mileage to brag about here. Didn't see Moby Dick either. But it was still a beautiful place to paddle that I've missed this past year.

Enjoy the movie; get a bag of popcorn!

Finally!

After a month off the water (and most other exercise) recovering from a respiratory virus, I finally got back into the kayak yesterday. What a relief! With March 1 temperature hovering near 70 degrees F, how could I resist? Got off work early and grabbed my paddle before any sedentary instincts could take over. It's hard to describe adequately how absolutely beautiful water can be. Changeable, colorful, hypnotic, reflective. Being this close to the stuff, while gliding along, is a treat. And the rhythmic noises of the paddle combined with the sensation of floating and bobbing has that womb-return quality to it, too. How can you beat that?

Foster City lagoons January 20, 2013

Getting better at this Gopro video deal, but not perfect. Sometimes the wifi bacpac system thinks it's recording and it isn't; sometimes it won't shut off. Need to get it working consistently. Mostly it does, though. Take a look at the video of the shorter leg of the canal system in Foster City.

Movin' Along....

So I'm supposed to be healing and I'm finally feeling some strength and some pluck. Tired of being out of commission, yesterday I tested my walking around ability. I had thought that I could only walk an eighth of a mile before my leg got too tired. But a test of a brisk paced mile walk showed me that I had underestimated my current state. Also got on a friend's small bike and pedaled around the block a few times today, but that's another story. Meantime, feeling that it's time to put my hip to more tests, I decided to do a test hike (very short, but steep and slippery) at Montara lighthouse, an old favorite of mine. At the same time I could test out the new Gopro Wifi setup, which I finally got working. So I strapped the camera on my head, the control on my wrist, and took a stroll to the hidden beach. The product is below (and all worked out well, BTW.)

Vive la difference???

Hmmm. Have I finally discovered how to import, convert and upload a Gopro H.264 MP4 properly?

By trial and error I seem to have found that cutting the original Gopro HD MP4 in Avidemux and outputting as MP4 might actually work with good detail left in the process. Uploading anything to YouTube remains slow, however.

Let's see how this short clip compares. You won't really know until you blow them up to full screen size, though. First is the old one:


The new one:

Ringing Out the Old Year

Can't say it's been a fabulous mini-vacation, as I was unable to settle yet on the right next kayak. But I did get in a couple of good paddles, despite the almost constant deluge over the past 2 weeks.

One nice paddle at Lake Del Valle in Livermore, CA, gave me a good opportunity to check out 3 Wilderness Systems kayaks. Didn't settle my question, however, as that will take more time and lessons.

The last was on New Years Eve day, with a morning paddle in the cold clear weather. I had the Foster City lagoons to myself pretty much. Just me and the birds again.

This one gave me a chance to practice with my new Gopro Hero video camera, mounted via a suction cup mount onto the bow of the kayak. Let's see if I got it more "right" this time, though there were glitches in the conversion and editing, and for some odd reason the clarity and detail is missing from this version, but not from the original. Just a quick encapsulation of a 1.5 hour 6 mile paddle that is my normal practice run. It traverses more than half the Foster City canal and lagoon system, heading south, then east from the boat park, and returning. It was cold and clear on 12/31/12 and I had the canals pretty much to myself. A beautiful morning paddle!

Futzin' Around

Took the Gopro out for a test video yesterday. Great day on the water, a clear, bright Thanksgiving solo. Had the camera mounted on my head strap again. This time, I stopped several times and took off my hat to check that the camera was on and recording at the setting I intended. So far so good. (If I get the Wifi remote control, that shouldn't be a problem anymore.)

Even though 1.5 hours of somebody silently paddling isn't exactly Hollywood (nor Bollywood), I did have some nice moments - so I thought. Several shots of ducks and other waterfowl taking off in flocks from the water, which is always a funny and interesting scene.

Unfortunately, lens was fogged again AND for about half the trip the headband and hat were not on quite right, which I didn't realize. So the best shots with the birds all ended up unusable, because the camera was pointing up at the sky. All you hear is flapping wings and me quacking at the ducks; all you see is sky. (If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably me!)

Alfred Hitchcock is laughing his ass off!

Also, as I'd been warned by friends, the head strap mount moves with your head. So I figured that I would keep from moving my head abruptly from side to side and pan slowly when I do. I kept my head pretty steady. So I thought. And I would be right, except that when you paddle you move your whole torso to and fro, which also means that the camera is tilting left and right too. How would a chest mount stop that? Probably no better. So I'm going to have to wait for a Gopro suction cup mount for the kayak hull, but I'm not sure it won't produce the same silly effect. Well, I suppose that's what I actually see when I'm paddling, were I paying attention that way, so can't be all bad. I've seen my friend's videos without this movement, so have to figure out how he did that on his kayak.

I'm also trying to use the Gopro native video converter and editor, which I'm finding is not well instructed and very very slow to process. OK, so miles of video take time, I get that part, but this is painfully slow!

Sooner or later I'm going to get this right. Then you'll be treated to short clips from hours of edited boring home movies. But they'll be MY home movies. Can you see me up in Bodega Bay filiming?

Eat your heart out Alfred....

The best laid plans of mice and men.....

Gang oft agley! (Thank you Robbie Burns.)

We had only 4 of us (out of an original 14, 10 bailed thinking the weather would be bad, which it wasn't at all) at RWC Harbor today. Really strong headwind slowed us down to half speed, so by the time we got to Corkscrew Slough, it was already too late. Tide was shooting out and that's too shallow.

 

In fact, I got caught on a sandbar for a while going back through Steinberger Slough! That was a heart stopper as it's all mud there if you do get caught. I had visions of spending the 12 hours there awaiting the high tide. Damn glad to power off the bar (thank you Big Al).

 

But we had a great time, because the weather was clear. Lots of birds, but no mammals in sight.

So I made every single error you can make with the Gopro! Talk about amateur hour. And I did try to deal with it, but simply failed. Got the dreaded fogging. Somehow switched accidentally to burst mode instead of video, so used up 999 pix of nothing in no time! Couldn't see what was what or figure out how to know when the cam was on on the headstrap. And also on recc of youtube video angled the camera down a bit too far. So I got a lot of not so great shots for my troubles, and I had so been looking forward to taking good video. Ah well....

 

Go Go Gopro!

Broke down and finally bought a Gopro Hero HD. Not the latest model, which just came out, but 2 versions back. Got a good deal on ebay and just couldn't wait for holiday presents.

Now we'll see what pix I can take from the deck of Goldie.

You gotta be kiddin', right?

I had been trying out various GPS apps for my Droid smartphone. Each did something I wanted, but none had done all I wanted as yet. So on somebody's recommendatnion I downnloaded Endomundo for Android phones. Started it up today on my paddle and didn't know what to expect. So after a 10 second countdown audibly, I put out and paddled.

Gorgeous, warm, bright, sunny, clear and calm fall morning on the canals. Even the gibbous moon was still visible in the sky.

After a mile I hear a voice coming from below my armpit (where the cell phone is attached to my PFD) telling me my time, distance and that I'm "on target". That was funny, because I never set a target that I could recall. How did she know? LOL

I was certainly startled, as I'd seen not a single human being and it had just been me and the ducks.

At two miles she piped up to tell me the same thing. Same me, only less startled to hear my armpit talking.

However, after stopping to rest and restarting, at 4 miles she started to bitch that I was getting behind target! Shit, I go kayaking to get away from people telling me what to do at work and at home....

Since I had to pull out the phone to answer my wife's call at 5 miles, I figured out how to stop the app from running.

When I got home I discovered that it has several settings built in for "nagging" you. Not my style! If I wanted boot camp, I'd have joined the army.

Next up is a used Gopro Hero HD (model 1) that I ordered on ebay. Hope that works well for pix/video without nagging me!

Tonight I led a "Great Pumpkin Paddle" on the Foster City lagoon system. Eight kayaks, loads of fun. Really beautiful night and a very beautiful experience. Eat your heart out, Charlie Brown!

Tiger in Your Tank?

Back to regular kayaking.

The old joke (as old as meetups from last year) was that my buddies used to say I had a motor in my kayak. Never occurred to me that I was pushing them, just paddling at normal speed.

Normal for me is a steady 4 m.p.h., which it turns out is pretty close to the practical limit for my little rec boat, Goldie. The longer, slimmer, sleek sea kayaks they all have can go about 6.5-7 m.p.h., but folks rarely push them that hard. So as long as they're not really trying to beat me, I lead the pack at my comfortable pace. And they work at keeping up.

Today I was out in the early morning fog, which was really a heavy enough mist to feel like a drizzle. Was caught on the last leg by a couple of guys in their very sleek one man outrigger surf skis, considerably faster boats than mine by a long shot. I could hear them behind me heading for the dock for the last mile, but they didn't pass. When we got to the dock I started kidding them about needing to catch up and pass me.

Then one of them said, while laughing, "You've got a motor in there."

I don't know these guys, but it seems to be the general opinion!

Maybe I'm the tiger in the tank. I think it's really the effect of Big Al, my Aleut paddle. The Aleuts, among the world's greatest small boat seafarers, designed them for harsh Arctic conditions to be comfortable for speedy long distance journeys. QED.

Rubber ducky again

Back in the water for sure now. Had a good 4 mile paddle 3 weeks ago before my back gave out. Then last weekend had a great 6 mile paddle with a friend.

How can you describe the feeling of being so close to the water? You're like a duck (or a rubber ducky) bobbing around while you look around. Only way to be any closer to the water is to be swimming in it!

I'm looking forward to getting regular paddles in again.

And speaking of paddles, I stopped the second fancier Aleut paddle project last spring when I was injured. It was heavy, though only half carved, and it simply wasn't turning out as easy or as pleasing as the first one. Need to get back to it and finish, if nothing else so that I can see if it turns out all right.

Would love to learn to roll and handle the surf zone. There are classes. They'll require more reliable hip strength than I have right now, so might have to wait until next spring. But take them I will!

If you see a bright yellow guy in a bright yellow boat laughing his ass off, you are watching me.

Here we go again! Thank God...

Back in action! This past weekend we water tested my ability to wet exit the kayak. I'm fine for kayaking now after 4 months of recovery. Can't wait to get back into a paddling routine. I think my kayak, Goldie, missed me as much as I missed her.

Not quite up to normal in the walking department and can't do road biking as yet.

But at least I can get back on the water. Wooooo hooooooo!!

Bad Break

Due to a biking accident, I broke my hip and am now totally out of commission, while I heal from replacement surgery. Bump, bump, oh la.....