Newport Harbor Pizza Paddle - January 2016

Updated: January 13, 2016
Post By: Matthew Hengst

January 13th, 2016
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About once a month a group of us get together and paddle Newport Harbor after work. We launch from the beach at the Newport Aquatic Center and paddle over to Pizza Nova in the main harbor in a combination of kayaks and SUPs. There we dock our boats, partake in feast of pizza and beer, and then paddling back to the cars. We do this all year round and in pretty much all conditions. Light, dark, rain, and the dead of SoCal winter where you're tempted to put a sweater on with your flip flops.

You can find writeups of other pizza paddles here.

If you'd like to join us just ask. We sometimes have loaner boats available and while admittedly some of us do bite most of us have had our shots.

This was our first pizza paddle since my knee surgery back on November 5th but hopefully we'll be doing them again regularly now. We're currently in that time of year where it's dark even when we arrive at the beach. This actually has it's advantages as the water in the harbor is usually smoother after dark and there is plenty of ambient light from all the surrounding houses but I do miss the sunsets we get other times of the year.

In an effort to get more pictures during the actual paddle I was wearing a GoPro 4 Silver I'm currently trying out as a paddling camera. Sadly the low light performance while on a moving kayak is pretty much what you'd expect though I did get a few usable shots below. (The others are all from my iPhone 6S)

This paddle was also the scene of the first major Pizza Paddle casualty. A jacket pocket was accidentally left open leading to the painful loss of a wallet, phone, and car keys.