A couple of weeks back, Nolin from TRAK kayaks had returned from the Philippines, where TRAK parts are made, with a New for 2013 BLACK Skin for the TRAK T1600. This skin Meet up with me at the Chicago Boat Show while I was Rep’ing for TRAK there, and Came home with me.
Not only did I get to have a little fun, rolling the boat at show, but now I get to take the skin out for a photo shoot where ever I go, and this past weekend it happened to be a surprise run to Surge Narrows just of Quadra Island in BC. I had about two days notice for the Sunday Flood tide from Local Paddler Alan Dunham, but I was in.
So on Sunday 26th Jan 2013 I woke up at 7am, despite having being out snow shoeing under the full moon till 2am that same morning. I drove up to Campbell river to meet the boys at the Ferry to Campbell river by 9am. There was a good turnout for the fun, Brent, Alan, John, and Brad, I was the youngest of the crowd, but that was awesome, I am highly inspired paddling with active and very able older generation paddlers. There is always so much to learn and you know you are always going to be safe if it happens to be a bad day for you. Thankfully no one was having a bad day, and even Brad, who was having his first visit to Surge, got some rides and slowly learnt to get some good rides.
It was a beautiful west coast winter day, you know the ones where it constantly drizzles light rain and there is no wind at all, little dimples all over the glassy water... love it. The current quickly stepped up to 6 and A half Knotts, which gave us a great building wave that soon stood high and deep for what seemed like 4 hours, with about an hour of build up and build down on either end. To begin with some of us played in the rocky features to that back of that wave that through in all sorts of different fun, from holes with piles, “V” waves, large eddies behind rocks. I was having a blast and so was everyone else, and It was great to have a sexy new Black TRAK along for the fun. The other new toy I was enjoying playing with was a Lendal Xrange Ti paddle, from Lendal NA. I had been given this paddle to play with by Lendal and it was fun, It is a great paddle to compete with Werner, it is just as light, has the foam core blades and is a four piece break down (great for Travel), the coolest thing is that it uses Titanium for its locking spigots, making an ultra tough join at all three points, the paddle performed well and was very quick and agile for linking strokes. 
The end of the day seemed to take a long time to come, which is great when you are having to much fun, though with Aching muscles and a killer thirst and hunger, it was time to head back to the cars and get the ferry home.
Thanks Al for thinking of me when you went, and for some great shots of the TRAK and I on the wave.
Check out Al’s trip Reports here http://www.capemudgekayakers.com/
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