Full Moon Moonlight Flat Water Paddling Session

[Night Wing]

I've been wanting to do a full moon, moonlight flat water paddling session on a totally cloudless night. I finally got my chance last night. I walked to the largest lake in our subdivision, which is about 100 yard from my home with my board and arrived right at  8:30 pm. The water temperature was warm. I'm guessing around 83 degrees F. The air temperature was 82 degrees F. And the moon was 99% full. Moonrise was at 7:58 pm last night where I live.

There was absolutely no wind. Dead calm. The water was like glass and with the moon shining on the lake, the water looked like a mirror. Since it was the dark of night so to speak, I knew the mosquitoes would be out and hungry. So I came prepared wearing a long sleeve shirt, long pants, socks on my feet (I used water shoes for the walk down to the lake) and a flats cap hat with a 5" long bill. And the mosquitoes were out.

Besides my board and paddle, I took my usual paddle leash, Type IV life jacket and I was wearing my old trusty Casio G-Shock watch so I could tell the time since it has a light feature.

I placed my 11'1" One World sup on the water at the lake's edge in knee deep water, got on my board knees first and then finding my sweet spot, stood straight upright and then used my paddle to get away from the lake's shore. From the light of the moon, it was very easy to see.

With no wind, the glide on my board was great. Very little effort from my 75 size paddle blade to get my long length board to quickly get up to speed. But then I thought to myself, I'm here to enjoy a nice leisurely moonlight paddle so why be in a hurry? So I slowed my pace and just let the board glide for the rest of my session.

As I slowly glided along with a just a few paddle strokes every now and then, in the moonlight, I could see the splashes from the largemouth black bass in feeding mode chasing minnows and/or small sunfish near the shoreline. The bullfrogs were out bellowing on the shoreline as well.

I took a few small rests breaks like I always do when the bottom of my feet tell me to. Normally, I rest by sitting on my board close to the shoreline for about 5 minutes of time. But this didn't work last night. Since there is vegetation on the shoreline, the mosquitoes were there as well. So I had to paddle a good 25 yards off from the shoreline to keep the mosquitoes from finding me.

I paddled north to south and vice versa from one end of the lake to the other end. Ditto for east to west and vice versa as well. With no wind to make any ripples on the lake and with my slow pace of travel, my board moving over the water didn't make a sound. The only sound came from my slow paddle strokes.

I originally planned to paddle for 90 minutes and leave the lake close to 10:00 pm, but I was having so much enjoyment from this moonlight paddle, I ended up paddling till 11:00 pm. My wife was a little concerned since I wasn't back by 10:30 pm so she came down to the lake (she drove to the lake in her car) to check up on me to see if I was alright. After she found me and I paddled on over to her, I told her I would quit at 11:00 pm. BTW, time seemed to fly by very fast last night. It felt like I had only been on the water for 90 minutes.

After walking back to my home and arriving at 11:07 pm, I found my wife had turned on the outside flood light and she had placed my Shore Stand sup holder in the ready to use position on the ground where I could see it. Placing my board in the Shore Stand; using the water hose, I cleaned my board from nose to tail, top and bottom, my fins, my paddle, paddle leash, long pants, long sleeve shirt, socks, water shoes; dried everything off I could and put my board, along with the rest of my equipment back into the garage. My clothing and water shoes I let drip dry.

I then turned the outside flood light off, came inside the house, took a shower, hopped into bed at midnight and went to sleep. I slept great last night. And no tired or sore legs this morning. But staring next year in late March of 2019, I need to paddle more often during the week to toughen up the bottom of my feet.

If you haven't tried a full moon, moonlight paddling session and if you have a place to do it, you should. You won't regret it.

[stoneaxe]

Sounds like a nice paddle.....full moon paddles are always nice....glass makes it magical.

I wish I was so detailed and good about taking care of my gear.....it gets washed...sometimes.....

[supthecreek]

Night paddles are magical!
Glad you had such a nice experience NW!

You are very orderly for a surfer...
Great guy to buy used gear from!

Thanks for the story 😃

[surfercook]

Nicely written account of a great paddle. Something magical about paddling. It's hard to describe the joy of doing it. To me it's the opposite of kayaking (no offense yak-ers).

[deepmud]

Great writing. I was practically there tho I have to stretch my imagination to think of so much warmth lol. Inspiring for me to read while I dream of next year. Thanks for sharing.

[burchas]

Great Story, great write-up Night Wing! It takes talent to write that way.

I thought that as a Night Wing, the nocturnal raptor that you are, this is your nightly routine

[Night Wing]

For people who live near a lake, you need to do a night time full moon flat water paddling session. It is an excellent way to beat the summertime heat with it's high heat index. And there is a different "feel" from a night time flat water paddling session to a day time flat water session.

[connector14]

I was right with ya there....until you mentioned Florida's national bird....the mosquito!
I guess they like Texas too.

[Night Wing]

Where I live in Texas, just 90 miles from the upper Texas coast at Galveston, we have had a wet summer. In fact, wetter than normal. With lots of rain, lots of mosquitoes are a "given" during the night time hours. But, once on the lake, no mosquitoes.

[surfinJ]

Very cool story, thanks for bringing us along.

[Night Wing]

For this post, keep in mind I'm 5'8" in height with my left and right shoulder joints both surgically repaired.

Doing a full moon moonlight padding session at night has a totally different "feel" to it than doing a daytime paddling session. What I noticed quite early on during my moonlight session, was my paddle length.

Since I have an adjustable length paddle which I can change paddle lengths on the fly while on my board, during the daytime, I like to use a 70" paddle length for flat water paddling sessions. But on this moonlight flat water paddling session, the 70" paddle length seemed to "feel short". Using the light from my G-Shock watch, I lengthened the paddle length to 71". This was the ticket since the 71" length felt "right" for me.

Since I lengthened the paddle length, I wondered what the 71" paddle length would feel like on a daytime flat water paddling session. So last Sunday morning I did an early 6:50 am flat water paddling session at 71" to see if I could tell the difference from 70". I couldn't at first, but I decided to recreate the feel of a full moon flat water paddling session during the daytime. BTW, there was no wind when I did this daytime flat water paddling session since there was no wind on my full moon moonlight paddling session.

I bet you're wondering how I could recreate this? It was easy. Once out in the middle of the lake with the shoreline far off, I just closed my eyes and started paddling doing five strokes on my right side and then five strokes on my left side, before opening my eyes to see where I was.

With the paddle length set at 71" and with my eyes closed, this paddle length felt right for me. But with my usual paddle length for daytime paddling sessions set at 70", again with my eyes closed doing the same five paddle strokes on each side, the 70" paddle length seemed to "feel short".

So for daytime and full moon night paddling flat water paddling sessions, I've gone to 71" for my final paddle length. This is how I fine tune things since I like to "think outside of the box" when it comes to experimentation.