Salt-water fun

There's been no shortage of things to do here in our 'Bama beach paradise.

Yesterday morning I did two sets of the May strength routine.  I brought my rubber bands down here with me, but not my dumbbells or my medicine ball or my stability ball, so I had to improvise a little.  I found a stepladder and did my pushups with one hand on the bottom step; I did the abdominal "V" exercise with a gallon jug of water in lieu of the medicine ball; I did the bicep curls with the rubber band hitched to my car's bumper instead of the dumbbells; and I did the dips at a corner of the kitchen counter, supporting my full body weight instead of having my feet on the stability ball.  Doing alternative versions of these exercises is probably not a bad thing, as it'll hit my muscles from different angles.

Then it was time to paddle with the nieces and nephews.  The kids swapped out in the tandem boat while I followed along in my surf ski.  The Gulf breeze felt good, and it was a nice way to spend a hot, humid morning.

There was no paddling this morning because we had a fishing trip scheduled.  My sister and brother-in-law and two nephews and I took a chartered boat out to a spot in Mississippi Sound and cast our lines for several hours.  I caught three white trout that were big enough to be worth keeping; in all we caught ten keepers, and that'll provide a rather nice supper this evening.  It was my first time fishing in some 32 years, and it was actually more fun than I remembered.  I can see how people get obsessed with it.  My brother-in-law compared it to a gambling addiction: you catch something just often enough to make you want to keep casting your line, believing that the next cast will land The Big One.

Late this afternoon I finally got in my boat and paddled out into the sound.  After a ten-minute warmup, I did ten 40-stroke sprints, starting at three-minute intervals.  After that I made a somewhat impulsive decision and decided to paddle all the way across the sound to the mainland, or at least to the far end of the Dauphin Island Parkway causeway.  It's a lot farther than it looks from the deck of our rented house.  I was pretty tired by the time I was halfway back to the house.  My total paddling time was just over 80 minutes.

Tomorrow is my last full day here, and I think I'll spend it paddling with the nieces and nephews.