Wednesday 29th Paddle Club

Hout Bay sunset paddle this evening folks. Meet at the NSRI station slipway at Hout Bay at 5.30, on the water 10 minutes later.
UPDATE: It's looking very windy at the moment, more later - or phone the shop for finality.
UPDATE II: 12 midday. Somebody at Hout Bay has just said it's calm there.
REPORT: It was pretty windy and only Derek, Gary Estelle and Jen turned up. We set out through the harbour and into the bay where the wind was coming quite strongly from our right - probably 45kph or so, no worse than a strongish S.Easter in False Bay and nothing like the wind during the race that Paul described. We decided to turn left toward the beach, then along the beach toward the beginning of Chapmans Peak Drive and then follow the drive in the hope we would be in the lee of the wind. Sadly no lees were found and Estelle and Jen sensibly stayed near shore while Gary and I set off into the wind through the waves towards the view point under the cliffs. There was little respite from the wind once there but the wind waves obviously had dropped as there was no stretch of water on which it could build up. From there the fun started on the downwind leg! It was a most interesting sensation because the open ocean swells were coming beam on from the left while the wind and the wind created waves were from behind so you would be surfing a wave while simultaneously rising up and down from the swells. We headed towards The Sentinel and then turned right to head back into the harbour. The surfing stretch was really good fun, especially from The Sentinel where the swells and wind waves coincided.