Bring it on, Danny

Last weekend tropical storm Danny hit Nova Scotia and I was lucky enough to be there on business. I called one of the other Privateers (members of the old paddling club in Nova Scotia) and got some stuff organized for Sunday morning. Now the only thing left was to figure out how to capture this event for posterity.

A while back Jane got us a waterproof camera and I've been itching to get it really wet in the surf ever since. So, after a long day flying through Washington, Toronto, and eventually Halifax, I drove home to Saulnierville. The next day was pretty ugly with lots of rain and wind. Danny was blowing up some waves and I was stuck watching the wave forecasts on Wavewatch and MagicSeaWeed. Since I didn't have much else to do I spent part of the day building the helmet cam. A piece of aluminium, a stainless steel bolt and nut, and a little duct tape and this is what I ended up with. I must say the Olympus was great in the water. I sewed together a little neoprene cozy for it and lashed it to the helmet. My only concern was that it would come loose and whack me in the face. Thankfully that didn't happen.

Now the waves weren't the biggest I have paddled but they were nasty. Wave period, or the time between waves, can make a day at the beach pretty exciting. The first place we set out in we got hammered. Once we moved down the beach things got a little better. I took a whole bunch of video but first here a few still pictures of the day.

That big pile of stuff in front of us is seaweed that had been churned up by the storm. At one point I walked over it and quickly sank up to my knees. The stuff was still wet and a little ripe. I hope the smell will come out of my paddling shoes.

This first video is one of the first tries to get out. If you watch it all you can see that when I get into the really big stuff one wave breaks right on me and the boat and I end up surfing backwards to the beach. Surfing is surfing but I usually like to see where I'm headed.

After the first run I switched boats. The orange boat is my Dad's. It made it easier to get out but since it's a long sea kayak it doesn't surf the same way. It's after this run that we grabbed our boats and moved to the far end of the beach where the waves weren't breaking as strongly and there was more distance between them. It made for some good rides.

The next one shows a short side surf and then a short run before the wave break catches up to me on the right.

In this shot you get a better feel for how fast you can get moving. The boat I paddled is my buddy Paul's but it used to be mine. I sold it to him when I moved south.

Here is one last one form launch all the way out to catch up to Paul. I got the timing just right and didn't get hit too badly.