The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

		Singapore September 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I spent about 4 days in Singapore last week, which takes about 24 hours of travel from houseboat to hotel. It was cloudy and rainy most of the time, but I was in meetings most of the time anyway. I did get out a little and was able to walk on the Singapore Grand Prix 2011 Formula 1 race course, which is setup in the streets of Singapore. I don’t know much about the car racing industry, but it was a pretty unique experience to be able to walk on the course as it was almost completely setup. I left the day before the races started.

I also liked walking around the little bit I was able to: Singapore is very clean, safe and full of shopping and restaurants. I like the safe and clean part, and I understand there are more interesting things (to me) in the area too, so I’m up for a trip back to check out more of it.

This weekend, my friend Paul and I camped at Hobuck Beach (far NW corner of WA, state) to do some kayak surfing, which was a new experience for me. After 30 seconds of Paul explaining which direction to aim the kayak when going sideways with a wave (to not get rolled over) and how to hold my paddle when hitting waves (to keep from knocking my teeth in), I was ready to go.

After the first paddle out and through the waves, I was hooked.

After riding the waves, I understood Paul’s description of this being “scary-ass fun”.

After about 3 runs/rides, I was exhausted! The next day I learned how to pace myself, but the adrenaline rush, the power-paddling, and the concentration required is pretty intense.

My favorite part is paddling out into the waves and cresting over a big wave so the kayak slaps down on the back side. I caught myself saying “I love this!” a few times as my kayak was pointing down the backside of a wave and slapping the water. This is especially fun if you don’t hit the water until after your butt is in the air, which means you almost catch some air, or at least that’s what it feels like.

Riding the waves back towards the beach is pretty intense too, but a bit scarier because you’ll most likely get flipped over by the wave. The most intense is when you’re riding a wave pointing straight at the beach so you’re perpendicular to the wave when the nose of the kayak gets pushed under the water while your butt is near the top of the wave. This worked out fine (and fun) the first time, but the second time I was getting rolled before I knew what was happening.

After a day of this and finding some food in a nearby town (Neah Bay is “dry” and no restaurants that are safe to eat at according to locals), we opted for a little easy-going hike out to Cape Flattery to see the remainder of the sunset. As we were a ways down the trail, a woman walking up the trail told us that there are signs posted about a cougar sighting on July. We didn’t linger long since a cougar can take down a moose, they hunt at dusk, and there were no other hikers left on the trail (to be eaten instead of us). We hiked uphill fast enough to burn off the fries that came with dinner!

A full set of photos are at SkyDrive.