SUP’r Time

It seems our SUP excursions are taking us further out to explore new bodies of water. This week the Wheelers decided to take a mid-week summer sojourn to Annapolis, MD to test the waters, as it were.

The effort to get to Annapolis on a Wednesday evening isn’t particularly difficult, any more so than getting anywhere during rush hour in DC, but it was made more complicated by my being late to the pick-up point.

It should be mentioned that the weather on Wednesday caused our plans to be a bit up in the air and our plan B would have been to go to a Barre studio which, as I understand it, is ballet styled yoga. Admittedly this would have been a much longer and funnier blog entry if we had done Barre but I’m personally glad the weather held out.

Because of the indecision we missed the chance to have SUP coach Wendie join us which is a shame because I’m certain she would have loved racing the sail boats in the harbor. We promised her and ourselves we will go back when we have more time and the weather is more certain.

The girls and the boys took separate cars this time and the girls beat the boys by a large margin. (“Tell ‘em Large Margin sent ya.” Paraphrasing Pee Wee’s Big Adventure for those of us of a certain age) Lisa, as always, did a fantastic job coordinating everything so by the time we got there all John and I had to do was sign our death warrant and head to the floating dock. My board and his kayak along with our life jackets and the girl’s shoes were all there ready for us. John and I have both taken to carrying several zip-lock bags with us at all times this summer since we never know when we’re going to end up on the water. So wallets and phones stayed with us this time.

The board they gave me was a bit longer and flatter than the one I had on the Potomac and I was glad for the added stability. I mounted the board kneeling, which is likely the policy of any place that rents these off a dock to prevent head injuries, and paddled down the alley of boats to open water.

The harbor is the busiest place we have paddled to date. The slips were full of sail and power boats so being on the board it was tough to see until I was away from the docks. After that we were in traffic. There were mostly sailboats with a few small power boats. Everyone on the water was nice and seemed to be a little impressed that we’d attempt to navigate these waters standing up. Nevertheless we must have seemed like squirrels darting out in front of their cars to them as we tried to get across the channel closer to the capital where the girls were. John said it was like trying to get across 495 on foot and he’s about right. The relative speeds would probably match up.

I opted to stay on my knees for the crossing since I was much faster that way. The board, for its width was still quite fast and that may be attributed to the length. I managed to get across without incurring the wrath of various Skippers or Mr Howells.

Once we met up with the girls, Patricia standing and Lisa showing off expert kayak moves, I transitioned to standing. I noticed the water was easily as choppy as the Potomac and it got choppier when a breeze came along. The breezes were not constant though. The board makes a difference and I felt considerably more stable even though Patricia said the water was choppier this time. She had been on a wider board on the Potomac.

I could feel my legs working to stay stable on the board. I’ll mention here that Wednesday morning, in some act of self-flagellation (don’t assume, just look it up), I met Wendie at 5:30 AM for a Wendie sized leg workout. It’s a nice group of self-haters at the gym that time of morning and we were all determined to die before the day got too far along. So, three hours later the leg workout wrapped up. Gold’s thinks it funny that to get out of the “real” gym section one must climb a flight of stairs. Then in order to get to the locker room there is another flight. So a good portion of those three hours was spent trying to get out of the gym. Seriously though, the workout should take about 90 minutes but a lot of time was taken by an infinitely patient coach to teach me proper form and the exercises in general. I still have a long way to go to figure that out and my second attempt Friday proved that again.

I told that story only to illustrate where I was physically and mentally. My legs were nearly numb and mentally I was cranky. So it says a lot about the place, the boards and the company to say that I felt like I could have stayed out and stayed standing much longer this time. The weather was perfect. Patchy sun with picturesque clouds keeping it cool and comfortable. The water rippled in the breeze but other than a few mild sailboat wakes it never felt unmanageable. For a while Patricia and I sat or stood on our boards and just let ourselves experience the moment. Something about being in the middle of all that activity, floating on a stick and feeling so comfortable that is a balm to the soul. Your own island of solitude in the middle of bustling butt-heads.

Jon and Lisa were racing their kayaks up the river. I’ve used a few terms interchangeably for the water we were on but to be exact it is Spa Creek. Lisa by this time had conducted a phone meeting in her floating office and couldn’t have been happier about the location. We paddled around a bit more and since we were due back by 6:30 we headed back towards the docks. Earlier we had heard the bells chime the six o’clock hour. It was another one of those moments of unplanned beauty.

We returned what needed returning, dressed as we needed to dress and bid our goodbyes to the good people at Annapolis Canoe and Kayak. The folks there were very nice and maybe it’s because they love what they do or maybe they just appreciated someone renting from them on a Wednesday night. Either way they are highly recommended by the Wheelers. They even recommended the best place for our crab feast, which I suspect was the main reason Lisa wanted to do this in Annapolis in the first place.

Mike’s Crab House on Riva (pronounced “REEVA” not “RIVA” as in River. Siri will take you to across the Bay Bride if you pronounce it wrong) is an honest traditional crab house. I’m not going to review the place here but the food is good and we all had a good meal in a nice location and overall it felt like a mid-week vacation.

If you’re in Annapolis or feel like going there and you are confident enough on the SUP to handle a little small craft traffic and a bit choppier conditions at times this is a good place to go. Don’t expect wide open waterways but do appreciate what it feel like to be paddling down what is essentially a main street in an historic city.