Paddling Billy
My tandem kayak hums.
It’s a quite noticeable thrum that happens when The Honey and I bring it up to “cruising speed” - not an all-out sprint, but a high speed we can maintain for some time. The boat manufacturer and people familiar with the mathematics of sound waves can probably explain the phenomenon as a function of water cavitating against the long hull.
My personal theory, however, is that it does it because it’s happy. The boat likes to go fast.
We spent Sunday on the water over at Lake Billy Chinook, which has been called “Oregon’s Lake Powell”. Having paddled in both, I found the differences pretty glaring, but it is water in a canyon, in the desert.
Rather then the slickrock waves and sedimentary rock layers that the southern Utah desert brings to mind, Billy Chinook’s surrounding area was formed by a more violent source - the several volcanoes of the Cascade range. From above the cliff’s edge, we could see Mt Hood, Mt Jefferson, Black Butte, Three fingered Jack and the Sisters. At one time or another, they each blew ash or flowed lava across the Oregonian plains. Then the Deschutes and the Crooked Rivers carved a deep trench.
We started in that trench all bundled in wetsuits, sweaters, fleece hands, and dryjackets. Others in our party were in drysuits, which looked mighty uncomfortable to get into, but blocked the wind amazingly well. The OOPS crowd had paddled the other end of the lakes on Saturday, but we didn’t show up until the potluck late in the day. Oregon Oceanic Paddlers seems to be a large group that does lots of group trips, and folks sort themselves out depending on what they are looking for in a paddle - speed, scenery, camaraderie, etc - they are bound to have someone in the same boat (ha ha).
Al was our paddletrip lead, Karmen his backup. She had the most incredible swirled-colored paddleblades. Liz had a black on black Pintail with a scull and crossbones in the bow. Rex and Christina were in skin boats Rex had made - his had just been completed on Thursday, for a given definition of complete (no rigging yet) - and they favored Greenland style paddles. We were one of at least four different groups heading out that chill morning, but by the time we were all in our boats and paddled to the sunny side of the water, hats were being stowed and people started thinking of shedding layers. We had some wind that ruffled the water, but since it was traveling with us, it wasn’t terribly noticeable.
The rock walls, however, got your attention. No where near as large and grand as the Glen Canyon area, true. But instead, we had octagonal pillars rising from the water. Columnar basalt (which I once messed up and called “balsamic columns,” and apparently will never live down) mess up the idea that you do not find straight lines in nature. For a matter of fact, you get so used to the long pillars rising vertically, that when they start making curves and sprays it’s hard to reason out how the stone got that way.
At the confluence of two lakes, we stopped for lunch on a small gravelly beach. Landing our long tandem was slightly difficult, but it squeezed in with the other boats. We stretched and chatted and did those things kayakers do when we get out of the boats - mostly taking turns walking back into the scrub and wrestling with our wet or drysuits.
Paddling back the way we came, we expected to fight that tailwind we’d had in the morning, but were pleasantly surprised - it was glassy calm. The Honey did some experimental camera work with the reflections of the cliffs on the water, with the kayaks skimming through the colors. We saw cormorants and great blue herons and gulls, and even a hawk flew overhead.
Passing our launch point, we continued up the Deschutes under the bridge. After chatting with Al for a while about boat speeds, the Honey and I had one of those telepathy moments and dug our paddles in perfect synchronicity, switching from idle drifting to acceleration mode with no external communication. We could hear Al exclaiming something was impressive, but he was rapidly falling behind us. I’m not sure if it was the speed or the unpracticed, unannounced start. We were giggling at ourselves, and the kayak gave a short thrum before we upped paddles and waited for our party.
The river began to narrow to the point where I feared our long canoe wouldn’t be able to turn around. The walls of the canyon were alternating between the tumbled scree, scrubby grassland slopes, basalt columns and layers of ashy rock. We had lost our glassy water in favor of ripples from wind and current, but with two of us engines in our boat, we were spending more time chatting then sweating over our paddles.
Other OOPs party paddlers were coming down the river, having had gone up through the rapids. In a fiberglass tandem, that was not going to happen. After spotting spawning salmon in the river’s edges, we let our bow drift into the current and spin us around. We’d been fighting the current for the last hour, and traveling at conversation pace as we gabbed with our fellow paddlers. Now we were heading for the barn, and we poured it on. It had been a wonderful crisp October day with bright blue skies and craggy tan cliffs and blue clear water. The tandem hummed it’s way down the river.
Happy kayak.
More Photos Here