Saturday, September 26, 2009

"Pinned at 270 Degree" and the "best row of the season"




Last Thursday morning at 6:20am Emily and I met for a sunrise row to give it one more try before the RnR fleet goes into winter storage. Since the forecast predicted some choppy waters and an increasing breeze coming from NNW we decided to take the two Club Alden Stars.

Daylight had broken and the rising sun was behind some clouds by the time we exited Little Harbor. Thinking briefly of which direction to go, I said "Halfway Rock" remembering one beautiful morning row, when Jack and I had made it out there. Emily loved the idea, since she had not been there yet.

Off we went. We passed between MHD Rock and Children's Island and headed towards Halfway Rock. The water appeared calm and beautiful except some long rollers, and there was not a boat in sight. The clouds had moved away and revealed a beautiful morning sun beaming low above the horizon by the time we reached Halfway Rock. The atmosphere on the water was too beautiful to return back home right away. We extended our row and continued towards Bakers Island. At times the long rollers made our row feel like slow surfing and within little time we made it around Bakers Island, where the lighthouse looked picture perfect in the morning sun.

After Bakers we turned southwest toward our home base. As we had set our course on 240 degrees the chop got bigger and a NNW wind showed some strength blowing from the Beverly coast. It became more difficult to maintain the Alden Stars on course and we found ourselves going towards 270 degrees instead of 240. Not only kept the wind us from going back home the shortest distance. It lifted the flat bottom Stars upwards on the winward, which made it more difficult to keep the starboard scull in the water. Emily said "it feels like being pinned at 270". We both felt like rowing on a rowing ergo-meter where one seems to make little progress.


It was yet another new rowing experience and at the end, I called this morning row "one of my best three rows throughout the season". Emily called it her "best". What a beautiful thing saltwater rowing can be. I am looking forward already to the start of the 2010 RnR season.

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