As May already comes to a close, we have several practices and events to be excited about! Â We had our two novice practices where we had a total of 13 new paddlers come out! Â Some were seasoned SUP-ers and kayakers, whereas a handful had never been in a boat before! Â This year’s novices caught on remarkably quickly, and we’re hoping to see many of them return for the rest of the summer as the club continues to grow.
We also participated in the Plastic Tides event on May 18 (http://www.plastictides.org) on Cayuga Lake; a short “race” from East Shore Marina to Stewart Park designed to raise awareness and funding for the organizers’ trip to Bermuda where they will continue to combat pollution in our waterways. Our crew of 5 took off at the start of the race (trying to get out of the way of all of the SUP-ers battling the waves and trying not to crash into us!) and had a neck-and-neck race against one of our kayaking friends, Alan. Â It was a good test of our canoe Hoku’s stability (and Cynthia’s masterful steering!) as the waves and wind were picking up and nearly gave us an early huli drill for the season!! Â We ended up winning the 1.5 mile “sprint” and then paddled back to East Shore to warm up and head back to the BBQ. Â It was fun to see so many friends on SUP boards and first-time paddlers out on the lake. Must note that the water was very brown from all of the runoff we’ve had from major rainstorms and some minor flooding earlier that weekend. Â Thankfully our crew didn’t have to “swim” as much as those on their SUP boards! Fun day for the club, first “race” for one of new members Ryan, and a pretty cool cause to be supporting locally.
