Against the Wind…We Were Paddlin’ Against the Wind
No comments Journal Entry 12: Wednesday, July 30, 2008
COLVILLE RIVER, ALASKA– Aha! Windstorm #2, and we have ducked into some willows after the wind halted our downriver progress. This morning was crisp and clear, but the wind produced swells and breaking waves moving upriver, to the point that if we stopped paddling, we would float upriver!
We arduously lined the boat downriver, against the current, as described earlier and as shown in the picture below. Rounding the corner, the boat was being blown onshore, preventing even lining. This stretch of river is at least one mile long, and should be flowing northward, obliquely into the prevailing wind. Truth be told, the Colville has been lower and slower than we anticipated, and the backward-flowing conditions of present are a radical example of this.
Pulling the boat downriver, against the wind. The whitecaps in the background are waves flowing upriver.
