I understand that yesterday was among the coldest New Year's Days on record for the greater Memphis area. When I got down to the river yesterday afternoon the temperature display in my car said it was 22 degrees Fahrenheit. That was about as warm as it got the entire day. My boat's rudder and its cables were frozen in place, and the best remedy I've found is to put the boat in the water and start paddling and hope that the slightly-above-freezing water, along with any sunlight there might be, will help free them up. This time it took between five and ten minutes for me to have steering. After that I paddled steady to complete a 60-minute session. The north wind had some bite to it and I think it picked up while I was out there: the last 20 minutes or so, during which I paddled from the south end of the harbor back to the marina, was particularly uncomfortable. By the time I'd changed into dry clothes and put my boat away back at the dock, I was chilled to the core.
Ever the glutton for punishment, I returned to the riverfront this morning for another round. The temperature as I parked in the lot up the hill from the marina: 15 degrees. I realized I'd forgotten the shell I usually wear in such weather, so I decided to keep today's session short: 40 minutes. I put the boat in the water and began the usual effort to free the rudder. I mentioned in my last post that I don't usually do drills and stuff when it's this cold, but with no steering I found myself doing many one-sided strokes just to get the boat to go where I wanted. I paid the same attention to stroke mechanics as I always do when doing stroke drills.
After 15 minutes the rudder was showing no signs of coming unfrozen. I stopped at the dock to try to work it free by hand, but to no avail. I finally gave up and resolved to paddle as well as I could under the circumstances. As it turned out, the rudder was positioned in such a way that I was able to do smooth clockwise laps of the marina with only a little bit of one-sided paddling or backpaddling to adjust the boat's direction. In the end, I achieved what I thought was a good-quality training session, and I was pleased to have done something good in such less-than-ideal conditions.
The paddling itself is generally the least-unpleasant part of paddling on a frigid day: once I get going I generate plenty of body heat. The chores back on the dock are what's tough, changing into dry clothes and putting the boat away. Today I just put the boat away and skipped the change of clothes, dashing back up the hill to the car. I drove home and peeled off the paddling gear and hopped in the shower to warm myself back up.
I guess one obvious question is, Why wasn't the harbor iced over? And I don't really know the answer. I've seen the harbor freeze over a few times over the years, but yesterday and today it was as liquid as could be even though the temperature has been well below freezing for a good three days running now. All I can think of is that there must be certain atmospheric conditions required for ice to form.
The last time I'd paddled in this kind of cold was almost exactly a year ago. Last winter went on to be quite mild after that cold snap. So I guess there's some hope that we won't be subjected to too much more of this deep freeze. But you never know. I'll just keep taking it a day at a time.
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