Larry Goolsby
07/15/08 #4651
After selling my 3 old paddles last month, I wanted to replace them with one really good adjustable paddle. After seeing Simon's Onno paddle and the easy lever-lock for adjusting the length, I set out to purchase one. This wasn't easy at first because Onno is like a one- person company and I couldn't get a response back from him (Patrick Onno) for a two-week period. Turns out that he was moving his factory (garage)and had not hooked up to the internet just yet. Finally, I connected with Patrick and my paddle arrived exactly 9 days later. So my paddle arrived last night and I compared the blade size to my small Epic. It was actually larger than the Epic small mid-wing and only a little smaller that the Epic midwing. It's larger than one and smaller than the other so maybe it has it's uses. The quality of construction was as good as any other paddle. I actually wanted to say that it was as good as a Mark Porter constructed Epic and not a Chinese made Epic, but I held my tongue.
So this morning I met up with 2 locals which I will refer to as Rick and Marc (I don't want to use their last names in order to hide their identity). We set out to paddle around Lummi island at 0830 this morning with some really superb conditions. We went counter clockwise from the Gooseberry store parking lot and immediately I noticed that there was a 'creepy factor' when I was alone on the water with them. I was rather proud of my new paddle and it seemed to be working quite well as we traveled across Hale's Pass.
I looked over at Rick and asked him “What length of Paddle are you using”?
Rick: “I don't know. Marc, what length am I using”?
Marc: “205”
Larry: So Rick, what model of GPS is that“?
Rick: “I don't know. Marc, what model of GPS is this”?
Marc: “205”
So you can see why this was getting weird. Not weird like the time that Joost saw that Shaun and I wore matching shoes, pants, shirt, and underwear, but a twilight zone kinda weird. They only spoke when I spoke to them and when I thought they weren't looking, they would communicate with each other by twitching their eyebrows. I would say something to Marc and he would look at Rick and Rick's eybrows would start dancing like a Hula girl's backside and then Marc would answer back to me.
Most of the first half of the trip was against a current and we did get a few large tug boat wakes to chase down. The Onno paddle launches you better than the Epic small midwing but you pay the price of the larger blade when you are going a long distance. So it appears that the Onno will be superior downwind. The 'catch' feels so much like the Epic that I gotta think that Patrick Onno has owned a few Epics before he started making his own paddles.
So we rounded Carter Point and finally starting to enjoy the flood tide. We were cruising back up through Hale's pass and Rick noted that we were cruising at a high speed.
So I asked Rick “how fast are we going”?
Rick: “I don't know. Marc, how fast are we going”?
Marc: Twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch.
Rick; “Marc says we are doing 205”.
Larry: “Marc, how many girls did you ask to go on a date before one
said yes”?
Marc: “205”
I stayed quiet after that and kept to myself. As we headed north up the Pass my GPS showed speeds at 9 to 10.5 mph. A nice way to finish a long paddle. As I beached my boat I noted that we had taken 205 minutes to paddle around Lummi. Weird, huh?
LG