New year, same as the old year

Yesterday morning I was in the boat at 9:30 sharp, and spent the next 60 minutes paddling under a mostly-cloudy, although a pale sun did manage to peek through for a few moments.  The temperature was in the high 30s Fahrenheit.

My back was quite sore up along my upper spine at the end of last week, even though I had spent the week doing the typical Christmastime sitting around with family.  The soreness has eased during the course of this week.  I've mentioned before that I'm really focusing on paddling with my legs and lower torso these days, and as long as I do that the pain is not aggravated by paddling.  Every now and then, if I paddle through some turbulent water out on the river, I'll stop short of a full rotation at the waist and transfer more of the work to my arm and shoulder and upper back muscles, and then I do feel some pain in that problem area.

Yesterday conditions were very calm, and I had no trouble using my lower body even out on the river.  There were a couple of small towboat rigs moving through, and one of them sent a wave of icy water splashing into my cockpit, but otherwise I was quite comfortable even though it was a dreary day.

When I got home I looked at Face Book and saw this photo that my friend Elise Piper had taken from her mom's condominium down on the South Bluffs:

The towboat in the foreground is the one that splashed me with icewater.  At this moment I am somewhere above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, but apparently too small a speck to see.