February Paddlin' Hooky

The forecast for today was close to 50 degrees and calm, so John Adler and I took annual leave to go out paddling. It was a gorgeous day to be on the river. The high hit 54 around 3pm according to NOAA. John measured the water temp as being 34-35 degrees. We took off from the causeway and headed downstream along La Framboise Island breaking small chunks of ice along the way. The small channel running between the island proper and a sand bar was, obviously, iced in... as well as the Pierre side of the island. After reaching the end of the island we turn about and headed back. We spent nearly 3 hours on the water and traversed roughly 6.8 miles (my gps read 6.7 and John's read 6.9). In all, it was a great day for paddling!

From 2009_02_05

John's pictures:

Scruffy Memorial

My (family's) dog, my best friend, my running partner, and my kayaking partner; Scruffy; passed away this evening. I don't feel like saying anything else right now. I'll post some pictures of Scruffy later.

Winter Paddling

Just a quick post to make the eastern SD readers of my blog jealous. The Pierre Kayak Club got on the water this afternoon. I am not sure how far we went but we spent about an hour on the water.  I can't find any confirmation of it, but the temperature was in the mid to low 30s. The weather sites had said a high of 36-38, but NOAA claims we never hit 30. Oh well.
A few pics:

SDCA Conference ~ January 24th

SDCA Conference

Mid-November Excursion

Yesterday was so beautiful out that I couldn't resist. I took the afternoon off and went kayaking! I invited John and Chuck to make it a Pierre Kayak Club event but they are salaried so they have to use 8 hours every time they use leave. ...and John, in his words, has too much of a conscience to just call it a day at noon.

So I was on my own. I put in from the  boat ramp near the polo fields (upstream end of Farm Island). Not too much to report from the excursion; the water was very low and I nearly got caught on a sandbar. I managed to get free without exiting my boat though. And, of course, some pictures:

Awesome Picture

I went paddling this evening... surprise, surprise... and I took what may be one of my best pictures to date!

From 2008_11_03

So, what does everyone else think?

November Paddling

I went kayaking on both Saturday and Sunday, though on Saturday I forgot to grab my camera and gps on the way out of my apartment. Hopefully, I can get John Adler's pictures from Saturday, until then, here are my pictures from Sunday. We went around La Framboise Island, starting at the Legion and heading upstream on the river side to the causeway.