Paddling around the Loosahatchie Bar

I got the surf ski back on the water today, and it seemed to do just fine.

In the six weeks between now and my next race, I hope to lay down a big chunk of my distance base for the season.  Today I did a long session, and plan to do one of those once a week.  (As I discussed back on February 18, "long" for me is two to two and a half hours.)

My route today was a counterclockwise lap of the Loosahatchie Bar.  If you look upriver from the Hernando DeSoto (Interstate 40) Bridge, the Loosahatchie Bar is the big island over toward the Arkansas bank.  Paddling around it, starting and finishing at Harbortown Marina where I keep my boat, takes me about two and a quarter hours on average.  Today it took me 140 minutes.

One of my favorite places in the whole Mid South is the Loosahatchie Chute (the river channel between the Loosahatchie Bar and the Arkansas bank).  Once I'm in the Loosahatchie Chute, out of view of downtown Memphis, the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and all other manmade structures, I feel like I'm in a wilderness area as remote as the Yukon or the Amazon.  The illusion doesn't last--the Chute is only a couple of miles long--but it's neat to be able to spend part of an otherwise busy day in the city in such a place.