My teammate Cyril once told me that with where I live, I had no excuse not to paddle every day. And further, I should be the best paddler on the team. He was right. I live in a beautiful place. That is why I moved here. I needed to get away from the dirtiness and grime of the east coast. I needed to detoxify. Now I try to get out as much as possible.

Winter is always the best. There are hardly any other boaters out. Mostly just commercial craft like tugs and fishing boats and none of the crazy fair weather yahoos that tend to disregard my life. Also, because of lowered daylight, alge growth is lower and the water is a real beautiful greenish color. Finally, the weather is more variable which make the conditions more interesting.

On Sunday's paddle, I had to make two large open water crossings. These are a bit unnerving. When you are with a partner in another boat, they can help you in a jam. When you are by yourself, 2 miles from shore, there is no help and the water is real cold (54 degrees). I had performed self recoveries before so I am confident I could recover but I have never found myself alone in open water outside of the boat.

At the start of the paddle, the largest sea lion I have even seen breached 20 ft off my bow. I mean this guy actually came out of the water and splashed down. He was a big one with one of those big flabby noses. I also saw lots of Eagles on McNeil Isl. McNeil Isl has a large state penintentery located on it. You can see it on the SE side of the island. For some reason they thought I was too close to shore and the guard came out of the tower and yelled at me to move away from the island.

I want to get out to some new locations. Maybe next weekend I will drive the boat up toward Port Orchard and explore up there. The King needs to change a diaper now.

Lord Cromwell