Tag: wellfleet

Saturday: 14K open water in Wellfleet

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Sunny warm and beautiful.  Brisk wind from the NNW between 10 and 15 mph with gusts to about 20.  This kicked up a fair amount of chop away from the windward shore, so I tried to stay close to shore where I could

I launched at 8:40am.  Here’s the weather data.

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I launched from the small beach near my house, and rowed along the shore of Lt Island.  Then I cut over toward indian neck.  On the water, the wind felt like it was more NNE than NNW, and once I got over to the indian neck shoreline, there was nice smooth water and a bit less wind.

I went into Wellfleet inner harbor and I wanted to explore up into Duck Creek.  It was a good thing I did, because as soon as I turned around the end of the breakwater that forms the entrance to the creek, my boat was surrounded by a school of fish, they looked to be between 6″ and 12″ long and they were swimming so fast that they were stirring up the surface of the water.  I wasn’t sure why they were so agitated, but when I looked around there were a couple of seals peeking out the water at me.  They soon went back to hunting these fish, there were thousands of them.  A most amazing site.

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I turned at the end of the marina and then rowed all the way out of the harbor and along the Wellfleet town beach to the west until I got to great island.  By then I had done about 9km and I needed to turn for home.  I didn’t stay as close to the beach on the way back and there was a lot more chop, which was basically on my beam.  I needed to ease up a bit and work on balance and timing to get both oars engaged at the catch with the boat rocking around.

I wanted to get over to the eastern shore a bit before I turned for home to avoid a bit of the chop, but time was growing short so I decided to just turn and row with the waves.  This was a blast.  Sometimes I was surging down the fronts of waves, but I needed to be really aware to avoid catching my oars on them on recovery.  In this case catching an oar is not the kind of slap that I am used to in flat water rowing, but burying the whole damn blade in the back of a wave.  I don’t want to give the wrong impression.  I would be surprised if many of the waves were over 12″ tall (except when they merged with a passing wake).  But it was enough to really change the way that I could row.

I surfed all the way back in front of my house to the little beach.  Then I had to carry my boat over the dunes back to my car.  One issue with the boat.  Every time I row, I get a good liter of water in the boat that drains out when I open the plug in the bow.  I suspect that the seam between the hull and the deck is cracked.  I’ll have to try to fix it this winter.

Edit:  Adding graphs from rowsandall.com

Here is the pace data leaned up and scaled so you can see the slow bits that were going into the wind and waves.  The worst was the bit from about 5 minutes to 10 minutes.  The bit from just after 20 minutes to 30 minutes was tooling around wellfleet harbor.  I struggled with the waves from about 55 minutes all the way to about 1:10.  The big slow downs were huge wakes combined with the waves that pretty much swamped me.

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Monday: 40km Bike Ride

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Monday morning the tide was too low to launch.  I would have had to carry my boat across 500 meters of sand to get it in the water.  It was also windy (15-20mph with gusts t0 30 from the SW).  So I needed another plan.  I decided to give biking a try.

I have my old mountain bike down on the Cape.  I decided that navigating the sand and gravel roads on the island on a road bike with skinny tires and clip-in pedals was a bit much.  I might give it a try sometime, but for now, the old mountain bike is the pick.

This bike handled the sand and gravel without any trouble.  It’s 3.6km from my house to the major road.  1.3km is sand road.  The other 2.6 is paved.  The transition from sand to paved is right at the boundary between the island and a long causeway across the salt marsh.  There is a little bridge across a tidal channel, right where between the “e” and the “u” are in the word Lieutenant on the map below.  The approaches to this bridge actually are covered by the highest of high tides and cut off the island for a couple of hours.  When I went out biking it was much closed to low tide.

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Right across Route six is the Cape Cod Rail Trail.  A lovely, straight, flat bike trail along the path of railroad right of way.  It stretches for about 23 miles.  I got on at about mile 22, and I rode south 15 km.  I decided to just ride out 50 minutes and then turn around to go home for a total workout length of 100 minutes.

When I turned around, I realized that I had a work phone call to do at 11am, so I pushed the pace and cut off a few minutes.  It also actually got my heart rate up into some reasonable zone for training.

Very nice.  I think biking is a great alternative if the tides of wind are not favorable.

Friday: 16K in Wellfleet

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Today was deceptive.  I launched from the base of our stairs.  I came in yesterday at our house and stored the boat on top of the breakwater (not an easy thing to do, by the way).

This morning I had some time to think through my technique.  Basically I do it in steps.  I lift the stern, carry it halfway down the seawall and set it down.  Then I do the same thing for the bow.  Repeat as necessary to get to the beach taking care to not let the boat slide along the rocks.  It’s a bit nerve wracking but a lot easier than cartopping to a long walk to the water.

Anyway, I got myself launched and headed out.  Again it took about 10 strokes of touching sand before I was in deep enough water.  Then I headed east across the bay.  The wind was from the north and as soon as I cam out from  the lee of the island, I got hammered by the waves coming at me from the stern quarter.  They were just over a foot, with some whitecaps. I decided that turning around and heading up to indian neck would probably give me better water.  A good idea.  As soon as I turned around and was heading up into the wind, I filled the cockpit with water.  It also splashed the crewnerd hard enough to turn the damn thing off.  I could still see my splits and rate, but it wasn’t recording any data.  I need to come up with some kind of a splash cover for the phone or just give in and buy a Speedcoach GPS2.

I was right about the water.  I rowed to indian head and the water smoothed out.  There was still a fair amount of wind, but it was entirely rowable, and quite enjoyable.  I rowed up to the north end of the bay, then turned west and rowed along the north shore to the north end of great spit.  Then turned and rowed back all the way to the inner harbor, and around the outside of all the moored boats back to the end of the breakwater.  Then I cut back to indian head and rowed south along the shore all the way to where the salt marshes inland of Lt Island are.  Finally I cut back west and rowed to the north point of the island and around the shore in front of our house.

All together, I’m guessing it was about 16km in about 90 minutes.

We have some company coming tomorrow, so I am not sure if I will get a row in.  If I do it will probably be a short one.  I’m liking this open water stuff, and I’m getting a hang of rowing this boat.  Basically, I need to rate a little higher and row a little lighter, with a gentler push at the catch, building up the pressure through the stroke.  It also is pointless to pay much attention to the splits because with the wind, waves and tidal currents, it bears only the slightest resemblance to effort going in and the quality of the rowing.  A much better indicator is heart rate.  Today, my HR was generally between 144 and 150.  144 was when I was rowing downwind which is easier but requires a fair amount of concentration.  150 was rowing into the wind, which is technically simpler but a lot more work.

 

Thursday: 15K Open Water Row

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Tuesday:  To much going on.  We headed back to the cape in the late morning.  I stopped for groceries on the way.  Once I was set up in the house, the wind was too strong for rowing.  Whitecaps all over the bay.  I went for a walk instead.

Wednesday:  Lots of projects.  Furniture getting delivered.  Buying lumber and hardware and digging post holes to put up a clothesline.  I was hoping to go for a row in the afternoon, but it was still quite windy, sustained winds between 15 and 20mph with gusts to 25.

Thursday:  Weather report indicated lighter winds in the morning so I got up round 7:30 and headed out around 8:30.  I’ve decided that it is impractical to carry the boat own the stairs.  They are too steep and rickety, so I threw the boat on top of my car and headed off to a place by the beach that I could park.

The beach is not steep at all, so I had to carry my oars out to the water’s edge and then go back and get my boat.  This round trip took about 5 minutes or so.  In that time, the tide had come in enough to float my oars. I got myself setup in the boat and rowed out to deeper water.  I was touching my oars to the sand with just about each stroke at first but within 5 strokes, I was free and clear.

The goal for today was to get used to rowing this boat in open water.  It will take a while to get used to rowing in waves.  Each direction relative to the waves brought unique challenges.  From some respects, rowing right into the wind was the easiest.  It was also the most taxing.  Waves coming on the quarter bow or stern tended to really throw the boat around.  From the side, the main challenge was to get both oars firmly set at the catch.  Straight downwind was kind of fun.  It seems to work best if you adjust stroke rate to match the wave frequency and take a stroke at the crest of a wave and surf down on the recovery.

Thursday the wind was from the southwest.  It was blowing pretty good when I first started at 8:30, but died down a bit as I went along.  This wind direction is generally unprotected, so the waves get bigger.  I think they were maybe 8″ to 12″ high with some bigger ones.

I was out for an hour and 15 minutes and covered about 16km.  All UT2 / UT1.