Inadvertent sail...

It was blowing pretty good this morning when I got up - east northeast at 20.  I was thinking about going for a paddle, but thought that the wind might be a bit much.  An hour later, it looked like the wind had let up a bit (I didn't check it), judging by the movement in the palm trees.

Well, I might as well give it a shot.  I put on some swim trunks and went down to the dock to get my gear ready.  Joan asked, "Breakfast when you get back?"

"Sounds good."

There were some pretty good wind ripples in the canal.  Our canal is oriented pretty close to 120º/300º.  East northeast, huh?  I thought the houses on either side might give me some decent protection.

As I paddled down the canal, I could see the gust lines on the water... I used to play those lines when we sailed... this morning, I did my best to lean into the gusts, to stay on the board.  Yep, there was plenty of wind; more than I had tried to paddle in so far.  Further down the canal, the wind ripples in the water were constant and quartering the nose of the board... three strokes on one side, one on the other.  My forward progress got slower and slower as the wind built.  Then I was paddling to stay in place.  Then, moving sideways and backwards while paddling forward.

On the bright side, the trip back to our dock was a breeze... literally.

A bit more protection at our end of the canal, so I paddled around a bit until my arms and legs agreed: that's enough.

I'm ready to take on the day.