Practice Run

Since the lake swim last week was disappointing, we decided to try some different tactics this weekend. We added a Site-Line device for keeping me swimming on a straight course, and I drank about a half gallon of water to prevent cramps. I even drank some water while I was swimming. NO, not LAKE water! I brought some good filtered water in a sports bottle from home. Well, actually I did drink some lake water but it wasn't intentional.

Another change in tactics was for me to tow an empty kayak while swimming. The kayak was rigged with all the equipment needed for paddling, and a rope ladder for climbing in from deep water. This way, a rescue in the event of cramps, exhaustion, or hypothermia, could be accomplished without dragging the swimmer through the cold water as we did last week.



This photo of me drinking water was taken at about the 1-1/2 hour mark. The destination, Clarke Beach Park, is the tree covered shoreline between the tips of the kayaks.








After arriving at the park, and a short break to gear up for paddling, we took this photo of the GPS with the trip odometer showing 2.20 miles, the moving average at 1.1 mph, and the total moving time of 1 hour and 59 minutes. The wind was out of the north, so we rode with the wind and roller waves, all the way back to the Cedar River. The return trip took 52 minutes, increasing our average speed for the whole trip to 1.6 mph.




Here's a photo of me at Clarke Beach Park, all rigged up to paddle back home, and a picture taken at the Cedar River, of the intrepid paddler, Great Grumpy, who guided me the whole way.




Since this was only a practice run, and since we didn't have our official witness present to record the event, this lake crossing does NOT count as the 40th year anniversary crossing. We will have to wait until next August when our official witness is available and try it again...this time for real.

Flowers

The HeidiCoaster keeps posting beautiful photos of flowers. It makes me jealous, so I'm posting some of my own. Our tomatoes didn't produce anything, I accidentally killed my dahlia bulb, and who wants to look at a patch of spinach? So without any more explanation, here are the flowers.

Repair of 70 year old cedar gutters

Our gutters have been leaking for years. When we first moved into this house I tried to stop the leaks by applying roofing tar, as had been done to them before, but that didn't help. We were nearly at the point of tearing them down and replacing them with metal gutters, but other than the leaks at the corner joints, they actually looked like they were in good shape.

Monya did some research on the web and found a place in California that specializes in wooden gutters, and they had a web site with instructions on how to do it yourself. If they had been located in Washington State, I would have tried to hire them, but since they weren't I decided to give it a try for myself.

So here's what a typical corner joint looked like after I had chipped, peeled, and pryed the tar and old caulk out of it. Notice that there is a "V" shape cut into the joint. That's where the caulk goes, allowing a generous amount of it to expand and contract with changes in temperature.

The next photo shows how it looked after I filled the joint with 50 year, non-hardening gutter seal caulk. One rainy day after finishing the joints like this proved that the gutters were not leaking at all any more.

Unfortunately, there was one spot where the joint between the gutter and the downspout had failed and caused the gutter to rot. I took out about 17 inches of old gutter and replaced it with a section of fir that nearly matches the shape of the original gutter. I had to round off the ends of the fir patch and chisel out a channel in the bottom to allow the water to flow smoothly.

Then I had to drill a new hole for the downspout. I sealed everything up water tight with gutter caulk and then painted the new wood with primer. A finish coat of paint will go on soon.

7 Year Old Perspective

This morning I went through the photos that the LeGrand Mermaid took of the lake crossing event. After reading the previous post, you will realize that this beginning photo is pretty much all there was to the event. But look at it from a 7 year old's perspective.

There is the Great Grumpy on the right, the Daddy in the kayak, and the splash from the Bopop jumping into the water. I apologize for the reduced resolution in this posting, but the original shows crystal clear water droplets, backlit by the early morning sun. I love how she has Daddy in the kayak framed perfectly between the bars of the railing.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing that I didn't make it across the lake. The really fun part was having another four-generation event.

40th Anniversary Swim

Last February, while swimming laps in an indoor pool, it occurred to me that I should try a repeat of the swim across Lake Washington that I did 40 years ago, when I was 19 years old. I decided that I could do better this time, planning it for August when the water is typically warmer, rather than July. I needed to scout out a new set of launching and landing spots: Lakeridge Community Beach has been closed for more than 20 years, and I remember the lifeguards at Kenneydale Beach refused to let me come ashore that day.

I measured the distance between Lakeridge and Kenneydale, finding it to be about 2 statute miles according to Google Maps. Then I measured the distance between the mouth of the Cedar River and Clarke Beach Park on Mercer Island. That turned out to be a nearly perfect 2.1 miles.

I announced my intentions to friends and family and then began testing my swimming speed and endurance. I measured the length of the laps in the indoor pool and timed myself while swimming 20 or 30 laps, then went home and calculated how far and how fast I had been going. It was about 1 mile per hour.

Next, I had to know if I could swim continuously for 2 hours. So I swam laps in the pool for 25 minutes before being interrupted by another swimmer. Once I had stopped I discovered that I had no sense of balance, and that quickly turned into motion sickness. I had to quit my workout.

Subsequent attempts at swimming continuously only generated the motion sickness problem again after only 15 or 20 minutes. It seems that rotating my head to breathe was causing the problem.

The next problem I encountered seemed trivial. Whenever I tried swimming at a vigorous pace, I kept getting minor cramps in my feet or somewhere in my legs. I didn't pay much attention to that problem. Endurance and motion sickness had my full attention.

The scheduled day for my swim across the lake arrived, but a call from my chase boat pilot ended the plan before we got started. He would not be able to paddle across the lake with a kidney stone. We rescheduled for the following weekend, but in the meantime, since the weather was very hot, I decided to make a trial run on the lake to test the water temperature, my equipment, and the navigation and communication possibilities between swimmer and kayak.

Fortunately I found a willing alternate kayak pilot and the two of us headed out for an afternoon outing in choppy, windy conditions.

My idea to prevent motion sickness was to use a scuba diving snorkle so I could keep my head in one position. That worked quite well. My wet suit seemed to cause too much drag, so I took it off, along with the wading shoes. Holding a straight course turned out to be difficult too. I tended to wander off course quite quickly, and I could not see either the boat or the paddle under water. I made up my mind that I had to keep looking above the surface once every ten strokes or so. I swam for a total of one hour and was only slightly tired. All systems seemed to be "go" for the following weekend.

The "following weekend" was this morning. It was just cold enough that I decided at the last minute to put on the wetsuit. I am a wimp about cold water, but we had to go early so the water would be calm.

We launched the kayak at 07:30 and I hit the lake at 08:00. The water was pleasantly cool, so as soon as I had adjusted to it I took off the wet suit and shoes. We struggled a bit with navigation and communication, but this time I had chosen to use my swim goggles instead of the scuba diving mask, and the visibility was much better out to the side. Of course there was nothing to see straight down. I watched for sea monsters anyway.

I think we had been out about 30 minutes when I got the first twinge of a cramp in my leg. I changed my stroke and let it relax out, as I have done for cramps many times before. Then I went back into my cruising pace. Within minutes the little warning cramps begain appearing in different leg muscles, so I kept changing my pattern, but soon it became apparent that whichever leg I switched to would immediately cramp up. We had gone just about half way to Mercer Island. The GPS said 1 mile or so.

I tried relaxing in a back float, but my legs just curled up under me. I laid face down in the water, breathing through the snorkle and had my kayak helper rub my legs. Then I slung my legs, one at a time, over the top of the boat so he could push the cramps out, but as soon as one was out, the other would cramp up again. The cramps began forming faster than we could treat them.

All this fiddling around with cramps meant I was not generating heat, and I began to get cold. We quickly decided to abort the mission and head for the nearest public beach. Kenneydale Beach was only about 1/3 of a mile away. I put on the life jacket for warmth and extra safety, and hooked my arms and legs around the bow of the kayak while we paddled ashore. Standing and walking soon had my leg cramps under control.

We recalled our pickup crew back from Mercer Island and within 15 minutes they arrived at Kenneydale Beach. I dried off and put on some warm clothes, so all was well except for the disappointment of not finishing the distance.

As I am writing this description, my legs are still stiff and sore. I have muscle strain in nearly every leg muscle from the cramps, but other than that I feel great.

I'm going to investigate the cause of the leg cramps and do something about that. Then I will begin a swimming workout regime using the snorkle, so I can be sure I can swim for long distances without motion sickness or cramps. Hopefully I will be ready for next August, when the lake water will be warm again, and I can call it a "60 year old" swim across the lake.

Shrieking Eels Don't Bite

Last Sunday, during the really hot weather, we cooled off by playing in the river. Lief and the mermaids and I floated a short trip three times, on two inner tubes. The attached video is a good example of what it was like.