More rain, then some sunshine, a beautiful part of the lake, and, finally, an epic

I left Michigan Sunday thinking I'd left the rain behind.  The Internet radar was showing no serious rain approaching the area I was traveling to, and the sun even started peeking through the clouds as I drove into the northern reaches of Michigan's lower peninsula, across the upper peninsula, and across the border into Ontario.

Not long after that I realized that I had no Internet service on my phone.  I had thought that my SIM card would work in Canada, but apparently I was wrong.  That meant, among other things, that my phone's map app wouldn't work.  As I headed up the Trans Canada Highway that curves north and then west along the northern shore of lake Superior, several times I wanted to use that app to double-check my progress toward my destination at Lake Superior Provincial Park; but the only way I could do that was to stop someplace that had free wifi so I could access the Internet.  And such places are few and far between in this part of the world.  This is not a heavily-populated region, and this part of the Trans Canada Highway features lots of 80-mile-plus stretches with no gasoline or other services.  The last place I drove that was like this was the heart of Nevada.

At least it was a scenic drive, with fairly frequent views of Lake Superior.  The Great Lakes truly are a majestic marvel of nature.  I thought the same thing during my time along the shores of Lake Michigan even though I didn't get to enjoy it fully because the weather was so lousy.  If this were a warmer climate, I believe the shorelines of Michigan and Ontario and Minnesota and Wisconsin would be the hottest tourist destination in the world.  Maybe in another hundred years...

Connectivity difficulties aside, I drove along thinking all was well.  But then, as I moved within 60 miles or so of my destination, it started to rain.  My heart sank.  Having spent four straight nights camping in the rain, I really didn't want to do it again.  I hoped maybe it was just a small cell and I would be out of it in another ten or twenty miles, but it just kept on.

I knew Lake Superior Provincial Park was somewhere in the vicinity of the town of Wawa, Ontario, but I didn't know exactly where, and I was unable to check on my phone.  As I drew closer to Wawa I saw some public-looking signage, but it was hard to read in the rain, and I'm pretty sure I did not see anything that said "Lake Superior Provincial Park."  Finally I reached Wawa, and I found a place with some wifi and checked the map.  It turned out I had passed the park almost 30 minutes back.  Meanwhile, the rain continued to fall, and it was quite chilly as well.  I pulled up the Internet radar and saw a huge blob of precipitation parked over the entire eastern portion of Lake Superior.  I don't know where it had come from--there had been no sign of it on the radar earlier in the day--but I had had enough.  Reservation or no reservation, I was not going to drive back to the park, pull out all my soaking-wet gear, and spend another night in the rain.  I found a nice down-to-earth-looking motel in Wawa, and checked in.

I had my first hot shower in five days, and enjoyed a good night of sleep.  Monday morning the rain had stopped and a dense fog hung over the town.  As I departed Wawa the fog was burning off, and it appeared I finally had a lovely day with some sunshine and pleasantly cool air.

I was still on the east side of Lake Superior, and the Trans Canada Highway runs north for a while.  North of Wawa it veers away from the lake, and between the lake and the road likes a huge roadless wilderness area that includes, but is not limited to, Pukaskwa National Park.  Though I don't know for sure, I would guess that this area is the setting for much of Bill Mason's films like "Waterwalker" and "Song of the Paddle."

Eventually the highway curves around to head west, rejoining the lake along its north shore.  It was here that I stopped at the town of Marathon and paddled for a while in Carden Cove.  I was still tired from Saturday's race and just paddled a relaxed pace.  The wind seemed to be blowing from the south, but it wasn't so strong and the water's surface was small bumps.

After paddling I continued west for another couple of hours until I arrived at the town of Nipigon.  As I mentioned in a post last week, Nipigon is the site of a park that honors the story of Paddle-to-the-Sea, and I made sure to stop and check it out.

Just a few miles south of Nipigon is a little lakeside town called Red Rock, and here I had a reservation at the Red Rock Inn.  I'd found the place on Expedia or some similar site and I didn't think it was much more than another motel, but it's a sure-enough old fashioned inn.  The innkeeper is this old dude who might have been around when the town was founded, and the place is basically a museum for early-to-mid-twentieth-century technology:

And there's also a lot of arts and crafts by First Nation people.  It was hard to get good photos of the visual art because of the reflection off the glass, but here are a couple of my favorites (because they've got canoes in them!).

This morning I checked out of the inn and went down to the town's marina to paddle.  How did it go?  Well, what I thought would be no more than a two-hour session turned into three hours.  The weather was sunny and calm when I set out; the forecast called for a 15-mph wind from the west, but it wasn't blowing anywhere near that, and I've paddled in my fair share of 15-mph winds anyway.  My plan was simple enough: paddle east (with the wind at my back), go around LaGrange Island, and return to Red Rock.  On the way out there was just enough breeze to create some small bumps, but nothing for a downwind lover to get excited about.  As I approached LaGrange Island the bumps grew into the sort of rideable-if-you-work-hard swells, and in the last ten minutes or so before I made the turn to round the island, there were some small but fun downwind conditions.  I was sorry to be leaving them behind as I entered the lee of LaGrange Island.

As I rounded the island, I suddenly felt several gusts that seemed a lot stronger than 15 mph.  I hoped they would be short-lived, but as I came around the island to where I could see the Red Rock water tower, I was greeted with easily a 20-25 mph wind and some good-sized swells coming from the northwest rather than the west.  Again, this was nothing I haven't paddled into before, in places like South Africa and the Columbia River Gorge and even my own Mississippi River at Memphis.  But by this time I'd been in the boat for more than 90 minutes and I was getting tired.  I paddled up and over one swell after another, and while my skills were up to the task for the time being, I wondered how long I would have to keep fighting.

After a while I stopped trying to paddle directly toward the water tower and went over to Burnt Island, where I took about a 10-minute break.  Then I aimed for the shortest path to the mainland shore.  Once there I would then have to paddle another couple of miles along the shore to where I'd put in, but at least I would have some shelter from the wind.  I just hoped I still had enough energy to get over there.

I told myself to relax and not try to set any speed records.  In this case, "slow and steady" would win the race.  At last I made it back to the mainland, and even though I was now running on fumes with a lengthy paddle back up to the marina, at least I knew that if nothing else I could just go to shore and collapse for a while, and be on the same landmass that my truck was parked on.

Lake Superior commanded my respect today, and it was a lesson to be more careful about paddling any distance away from shore.  One of the things that had lulled me into a false sense of security is that this part of the lake is enclosed in an archipelago of islands--it's actually the prettiest part of Superior I've seen so far, and I was excited to get out among those islands.

I am unsurprisingly dead-dog tired this evening.  I'm staying in a motel up near Nipigon and I hope to get a good night's rest.  I will most likely stay on dry land tomorrow; a bike ride is a strong possibility, as is a hike on one of the local trails.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Here's one of several shots of Rob Hartman that I got during his gig in Grand Rapids last Monday.  He and his mates in the John Shea Trio served up some quality entertainment, and they seemed to have quite a following in the bar.

I got to watch Rob perform in another venue on Saturday: the 45 North Solstice canoe and kayak race in Suttons Bay.  Rob was pretty virtuosic there too, winning the 9-ish kilometer race with little trouble.

Under ordinary circumstances, I probably wouldn't have left home until maybe Wednesday in order to get to Saturday's race.  I might have been able to get the central air conditioning situation at my house squared away Monday or Tuesday, and that would have been a load off my mind.  But Rob's gig on Monday was the only one he had scheduled during my time up here, and I really wanted to see him play.  The simple truth is that I really enjoy music of all kinds, and even though I have almost no talent of my own for making it, I'm fascinated with people who do.  What's more, one thing I love about my sport is that the people who do it tend to be interesting, talented people in a more general way.  If somebody is a really good canoe and kayak racer, it's a good bet that he or she does some other things really well, too.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Some soggy camping and some flat racing

I decamped from Fisherman's Island State Park in a stubborn rain Friday morning and headed for Suttons Bay, the site of this weekend's race.  I would be camping there as well, and there was a lot more rain in the forecast.  I arrived at my new accommodations and found it to be fairly typical of privately-owned campgrounds in that the owners seemed to put most of their effort into the RV sites while the tent sites looked like an afterthought.  But it was a marginally nicer spot than where I'd been at Fisherman's Island.  The bugs were not nearly as bad.

Friday afternoon I got an e-mail from the race director calling off the downwind race because of both lack of wind and the likelihood of severe weather Saturday afternoon, when the downwinder was to have taken place.  My registration was reassigned to the 10-kilometer race Saturday morning in a sheltered portion of Suttons Bay.  I wasn't really surprised; I'd known when I signed up that there was a pretty good chance that no downwind race would happen.  I turned in Friday night hoping to be rested for an ordinary flatwater race.

Yesterday morning I reported to Sutton Park, site of the 45 North Solstice canoe and kayak race.  (The name of the race is a reference both to the summer solstice that happened on Thursday and to the fact that Suttons Bay sits at 45 degrees north latitude--halfway between the Equator and the North Pole.)  The 10K race was supposed to commence at 10 o'clock, but the race organizers pushed it up to 9 AM due to imminent heavy rain.  We got in our boats, warmed up, eased up to the starting line, and we were off.  The course was an obtuse triangle of buoys, and we would make three laps, meaning that each lap was, presumably, three and a third kilometers.

Rob Hartman of Holland, Michigan, whom I'd just seen thumping his big bass fiddle in Grand Rapids last Monday, is quite an accomplished paddler as well, and he wasted little time opening a lead on the pack.  Nick Murray and Jonathan Sanborn gave chase, while I found myself a few boatlengths back with Greg Hintz.  I'd sprinted pretty hard off the line and it took some work to move myself up onto Greg's stern wake, but once there I felt that I could hang there comfortably for a while.  Pretty soon Jonathan got dropped from the lead pack, and I thought if I stuck like glue to Greg's stern we might be able to run him down.  At that point any one of us could end up with the third-place medal.  Up front, meanwhile, Rob opened a gap on Nick around the second buoy turn of the first lap.

Greg and I hit some shallow water with terrible bottom-drag near the end of the first lap.  Up to that point I'd been feeling reasonably good, but the extra effort I expended to stay on Greg's wake was a shock to the system.  Before I knew it, Greg had opened a boatlength on me.  I hung back on the third wave behind his boat, thinking a couple of sprints would get me back in the position I wanted to be in.  Instead, Greg kept on pulling away and soon had bridged up to Jonathan.

I've mentioned in previous posts that I've gone light on the training this spring.  Going into this race I wondered how I would perform under those circumstances, and now I had my answer.  I didn't like it, but I couldn't really complain.

The second lap was the worst for me, largely because my right wrist had started to hurt.  I tried to relax it and will some blood to flow there.  I was struggling to maintain 10.5 kilometers per hour--not even 7 mph--and it was a little depressing to realize that maybe I'm just not in very good shape these days.

As I entered the third lap I started to feel something of a second wind.  Maybe it was the mental boost of having just a lap to go; I'm not sure.  My wrist was feeling better, and that helped a lot.  At this point it was clear that I would be finishing no better than fifth, and I was motivated by the desire not to be caught from behind.

Rob had built a commanding lead by the final buoy turn heading into the home stretch to the finish line.  Nick was solidly in second, so the only question was whether Greg or Jonathan would nab the last podium spot.  I tried my best to keep my boat gliding, and with about 2000 meters to go I raised the stroke rate a little in the hope of finishing strong.  I was several hundred meters out when Jonathan and Greg reached the finish: Jonathan appeared to have the lead, but there was still a sprint up the beach to the official finish line.

Rob won convincingly in 42 minutes, 40 seconds.  I've admired Rob's ability for a number of years, and he didn't disappoint with his effort this weekend.  Nick finished a little over three minutes back to take second.  As it turned out, Greg did indeed outsprint Jonathan on the beach to claim third.  They were both not quite two minutes behind Nick.  And then it was my turn to finish: I was fifth across the line with a time of 49:11.  If the course had been a full 10K, I would have been ecstatic with such a time.  But my G.P.S. device measured the distance at only 8.95 kilometers.

Kelsey Lewis was the fastest female, clocking an hour plus 21 seconds.  The complete results are posted here (click on "10K Race").

The rain moved in just a short while later, and it was pretty heavy at times as we huddled under the park's one pavilion for the awards.  I ate a modest lunch from the provisions I had in my car; after that, there wasn't much for me to do but go back to my campsite and take a long afternoon nap in my tent while the rain poured down.

This morning I broke camp in the rain again.  It just will not stop raining around here.  I was motivated to get up and out early because at the race yesterday there had been talk of a group downwind paddle this morning from Lee Point to Traverse City.  The conditions were expected to be modest at best, but I would have enjoyed working even some small bumps.  The latest plan I heard was to meet at Lee Point between 8:00 and 8:30, but when I arrived there at 8 o'clock sharp I didn't see a soul.  I drove around the area a bit just to make sure I had the right meeting spot, but nowhere did I see any vehicles with surfskis on them.  I texted the guy who was supposed to be one of the leaders of the group, but I never got a reply.  There was no more than a light breeze blowing, and the bay looked pretty flat as far as I could see, so I figured the people who'd been talking about paddling had abandoned the idea.  I hung around until 8:45, and left.

It would have been fun to paddle, but I wasn't heartbroken, seeing as how I've got about a five-hour drive to my next destination, Lake Superior Provincial Park on the eastern shore of--you guessed it--Lake Superior.  It'll be good to get there sooner rather than later to get my bearings.

My plan is to camp tonight, and I sure hope it won't be raining.  Tomorrow night I have a reservation in the lap of luxury: a motel room!  In any case, I'm ready for a change of scenery.  Both Charlevoix and Suttons Bay are tourist-oriented towns, and that means all the local services are targeted toward tourists rather than the locals (read: overpriced).  For example, I stopped in a bookstore on the main drag of Suttons Bay, and instead of a store with rows of dusty shelves where a book-lover could browse for hours, it was a boutique-ish kind of place that carried only the most famous titles while devoting a lot of store space to coffee mugs and similar gift items.  It didn't take but a couple of minutes for me to realize it wasn't my kind of place.  I sure hope to find some more down-to-earth places in the second week of my trip.

So, as soon as I finish typing all this here in a Traverse City coffee shop, farther north I will go.  I sure hope our neighbors up there will let me in; as crazy as my nation has become, I won't blame them if they don't.  But I'll give it a shot.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Some great paddling and some good paddling on Lake Michigan

I rose bright and early Monday morning and continued north from Effingham.  Some five hours later I was in the southwestern Michigan city of Grand Rapids, where I'd reserved a room in an Air B & B.

I had a specific reason for stopping here.  One of the guys I'll be racing with up at Suttons Bay this Saturday--one of the favorites to win the race, I'd say--is a guy named Rob Hartman, and besides being a really good canoe and kayak racer, he's quite the musician.  And he had a gig Monday evening at a restaurant and bar in downtown Grand Rapids, about a 15-minute walk from where I was staying.  I got to see him play his upright bass with his mates in the John Shea Trio, pianist John Shea and drummer Fred Knapp.  I'd seen the trio in several videos on You Tube and I knew they were good, and they did not disavow me of that belief Monday.  Rob thumped some hot solos, too.

On Tuesday I headed north yet again, this time driving for only about three hours.  That delivered me to Fisherman's Island State Park, where I'd reserved a campsite for three nights.  Finally, I could put down some shallow roots.

I've stayed at all kinds of state parks, and their campgrounds run the gamut in the sort of amenities they offer.  Some are downright posh, with flush toilets, hot showers, water and electricity at each site, and more.  At Fisherman's Island, things are closer to the rustic end of the spectrum.  The restrooms are pit toilets, and the only water source is a couple of pumps that bring up rust-colored water from a well.  And these facilities are a bit of hike from the campsite I reserved online last week.  I'm mostly unfazed, having lived the rustic life a few times in the past.  More of a challenge is that even though the temperature when I arrived was some 15 degrees lower than back home in Memphis, it was still very muggy.  And the mosquitoes are pretty bad: they're easy to kill, and their bites don't seem to make me itch, but it's nevertheless annoying to have them buzzing around all the time.  It was quite windy when I arrived, but the woods are so dense that the wind can't really get in to offer some relief from the mugginess and drive away the bugs.  I could hear the wind whistling through the treetops, but on the ground I could barely feel it at all.  On the bright side, it's just a short walk from my campsite to the edge of Lake Michigan, where I can enjoy a breeze and not have so many bugs.

Yesterday morning I was ready to paddle for the first time since leaving home.  I drove to the nearest town (Charlevoix, Michigan) because I needed a couple of supplies, and I figured there should be some access to the water there.  The way the wind had been blowing, I couldn't imagine that there wasn't some decent downwind action on the lake, and it turned out to be much more than just decent: the runs were as lovely as anything I've seen on the Millers Run.  Unfortunately, the south-southwest wind was blowing out (i.e., away from shore) by at least a 10-degree angle, and being by myself and unfamiliar with the area, I knew I had to be cautious.  I availed myself of maybe ten minutes of utterly enjoyable downwind surfing, then decided I didn't want to get any farther from shore.  Fortunately, I felt right at home paddling back to shore in beam conditions: while the Mississippi River doesn't offer true downwind very often, it's given me many days of practice in crazy washing-machine stuff, and paddling laterally across clean downwind runs seems easy by comparison.

I'd been on the water for about 50 minutes.  As I took out, I devised a plan for the afternoon: back at Fisherman's Island State Park the shoreline was more in parallel with the wind direction, and there I should be able enjoy some downwind action for longer.  I went back to my campsite and had some lunch and rested for a while, and then drove down to the park's beach area.  Once there, I realized that the weather had not been cooperative: the wind had abated considerably.  I got in the boat and started paddling, hoping that farther out from the beach some decent conditions might be lingering.  I found that there were indeed some rideable runs, but they weren't the kind we all dream about, where you can stop paddling and just surf for minutes at a time.  Out here I would catch a run but have to keep paddling to keep my boat moving sufficiently to link to another run.  It was actually very good practice for me, the kind I really could use a lot more of if I really want to get good at downwinding, but it wasn't the pure fun of the conditions I'd found in the morning.

The dying wind was part of a changing weather pattern.  By suppertime the air seemed less muggy, and a while later, when I'd taken my camp chair to the lakeside to sit and read my book, I felt the wind shift so that chillier air was coming from the north.  Back at the campsite I put on another layer of clothing.

As I lay in my tent waiting to fall asleep last night, some light rain started falling.  Then, around 5 o'clock this morning, I woke up to find it raining something fierce.  I managed to fall back asleep for another hour and a half, and when I woke back up it was just a light drizzle, so I got up and made coffee in damp, but not sodden, conditions.

After breakfast I returned to the beach to paddle again.  Yesterday I had paddled the more stable of the two surfskis I have with me (a V10 Sport), but today I opted for the other one (a V10L).  Once I was on the water I realized that the conditions were not dead calm, but in fact very similar to what I'd paddled yesterday afternoon, albeit from the northwest rather than the southwest.  I felt just fine in the V10L, and after paddling against the conditions for a half-hour, I turned around and did the same kind of workout I'd done yesterday afternoon.

This afternoon I'm back in Charlevoix, using a coffee shop's wifi to write and upload this post.  Having had a couple of poor-man's suppers in my campsite the last two nights, I think I'll see what the eating options are here in town this evening.  Tonight is my last night at Fisherman's Island, and tomorrow I'll make the trip over to the town of Suttons Bay, the site of this weekend's race, near which I've reserved a site in another campground.

The race on Saturday is supposed to be a downwind.  But of course, how truly downwindy it is will depend on the weather.  The race director has been sending out e-mails, and the latest says the conditions are likely to be fair, but not epic.  Maybe they'll be similar to what I paddled on yesterday afternoon and this morning.  If so, I'll have to be ready to throw in lots and lots of sprints, and whether my fitness level is up to the task remains to be seen.  I'll post a full report here the next time I get where there's some wifi.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Summer vacation 2024 has begun.  I plan to spend this first week in the state of Michigan, looking for interesting things to do and hopefully having a good race on Saturday.

After that my plan is to head up into Ontario and around the north shore of Lake Superior.  During this period I'll be passing near Lake Nipigon, home of the boy who carves and launches the eponymous wooden canoeist in the storybook pictured above.

We didn't actually have Paddle-to-the-Sea in my house when I was a kid, but the film version was shown at my school when I was in maybe second or third grade, and it captured my imagination.  I had probably been told of the hydrologic cycle by then, but in this film the concept of "source to sea" came alive for me.  That film version, made by Bill Mason for the National Film Board of Canada, is up on You Tube, and you can watch it here.

I understand there's some kind of Paddle-to-the-Sea historical site in the town of Nipigon, Ontario.  I'll definitely have to go pay homage when I'm in that area next week.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Wrapping things up at home and commencing vacation

It was time for another bike ride Friday afternoon.  After a couple of weeks of abbreviated rides, I did my full 90-minute course out the Greater Memphis Greenline to Shelby Farms, around Patriot Lake, and back home via the Greenline.  While it was mostly a nice not-so-humid day, it was sunny and hot: I think the temperature was about 91 degrees Fahrenheit.  Most of the Greenline is shaded by a nice tree canopy, but out at Shelby Farms I was fully exposed to the sun for about a half-hour.  I was reasonably well hydrated and I don't think heat exhaustion was the issue, exactly, but I was feeling quite fatigued during the ride back and the heat probably had something to do with that.  I continued to feel worn out for the rest of the day back home.

Indeed, a higher level of heat is moving into the Mid South.  Out on the river yesterday morning it looked like the sort of summer day lifelong Memphians like me know all too well: sunny, humid, temperature already approaching 90 degrees at 9 AM, and a thick haze hanging over the landscape.  I paddled on my home water for one last time, and while I needed some recovery from Thursday's workout and Friday's bike ride, I didn't want to do absolutely nothing because it'll probably be Tuesday or Wednesday before I paddle again.  I did a medium-intensity loop out on the Mississippi, and I could feel the fatigue in my legs from Friday's ride.  A northbound barge rig was well upriver as I left the harbor, but up around the Hernando DeSoto Bridge there were some lingering waves that I played around on.  They were small, but just barely big enough to get several good rides on.  If nothing else, it prompted me to rev my engines a little bit.

And today?  I hit the road.  I made it as far as Effingham, Illinois, which proudly calls itself "The Crossroads" because it's at the junction of Interstates 57 and 70.  I understand cooler weather awaits me farther north, but right now I have yet to outrun the heat.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Sweating through myriad hassles

I'm into my last few days before I head north for a race in Michigan and some exploring of Lakes Michigan and Superior.

On Tuesday I went down to the river and paddled for 60 minutes.  The weather was calm and the river was free of barge traffic.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, then paddled mostly steady the rest of the time.

After lunch Tuesday I was greeted with bad news from the company I've hired to install a new HVAC unit at my house: contrary to what they had led me to believe, they will not be able to perform the job before I depart on my trip.  I protested that I need to have the problem fixed before I leave town, that I have pets who must be kept in a livable environment, and so on.  They responded that they could loan me several window units to keep the place cool until I return.  I wasn't wild about that idea--I've never much cared for window units because they're inefficient and they're noisy and they can cause water damage if they're not installed properly--but that was apparently the best they could do, so I acquiesced.

I doubt anybody will ever mistake me for a sharp businessman or an expert in management, but I do know the importance of a company having all its personnel on the same page when it comes to communicating with its customers.  In this case, I had technicians at my house telling me one thing and the lady in the office telling me the opposite thing.  As a result I've had to deal with more hassles as I try to get out of town, while for them it's just another day at the office.

And this is the part of home ownership that never fails to drive me certifiably insane.  Long-time readers of this blog have probably deducted that a stable home is one of the main pillars of the life I live.  I cherish having my own space, enjoying the company of my pets, surrounded by pictures on the walls and other mementos I've lovingly curated.  Sure, I could rent rather than own, but when you rent you have no control over crucial things: the landlord could, for instance, up and decide to sell the property, forcing you to move on short notice.  So I prefer to own.  And look--I'm very fortunate to have that option.  I promise you, that's not lost on me.  But there are times--like right now, when I'm trying to get away on vacation--when I wish I could shed my home and all my other material possessions and give myself over to the ways of the nomad.  I guess that's the inspiration for the "van life" concept that's so trendy these days.

But, anyway... the window units are now in place, and they seem to be doing the job, and I guess I can live with this state of affairs until I get back home.  Meanwhile, I'm grateful that my few days with no air conditioning coincided with with mild weather outside.  Now the heat is rising: the latest forecast says that most days in the foreseeable future will have high temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit.  But so far the humidity still isn’t bad, and that’s a godsend.

It was right pleasant when I got down to the river this morning: sunny, mid 80s, and a light breeze that seemed westerly.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did another set of four bridge-to-bridge sprints starting every 8th minute.

The conventional wisdom for most sports is that the body takes around ten days to adapt to the stress of a hard workout.  That means that less than ten days before race day is too late for your body to realize the full benefit of a workout by race day.  And so if you're preparing for a big competition that you want to be in peak form for, you should do your last really intense workout about ten days out, and then rest and recover after that.  I don't know how "big" my race in Michigan is, but it's the only one on my schedule for a good while.  Today is actually nine days before race day, but hopefully my body will be mostly adapted on the 22nd of June.

The workout went pretty well.  I didn't have a headwind like I did last Sunday, so my times were a little faster.  The times were 2:10, 2:10, 2:08, and 2:10--still not as fast as I was able to go in my full glory of six years ago, but at least it was a good consistent effort, and that's really the most important thing.  My technique seemed to come together in the third piece better than in the other three, and that's why that piece was a bit faster.

I've got some packing to do, along with a few more loose ends to tie up.  I hope the stuff I've done in the boat will enable me to have a good showing a week from Saturday, even if I don't conquer the world.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

I've had no air conditioning in my house since lunchtime Thursday, and so far I've been hanging in there.  Fortunately, summer hasn't yet reared the ugliest of its ugly heads.  The temperature outside has stayed mostly below 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and the humidity has been moderate for this area.  But it's creeping on up, and my thermostat's room temperature display has peaked a little higher each day.  What we see above is yesterday's highest reading.

As of this writing I have picked a contractor to install the new unit, but we haven't booked a day and time yet.  I hope to speak to their office as soon as they open for business this morning, and I sure hope I can get on their list for sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile several people, including my mother, have told me I'm welcome at their houses if things get unbearable here.  If this goes on too much longer, maybe I'll have to take somebody up on that.  But I prefer to be in my home.  My kingdom.  The heat will have to be oppressive indeed to drive me out of here.  After all, I've camped out in worse summer heat than this.

Anyway... we'll see.  At least life continues to go on, and addressing tasks outside the house--including paddling my boat on the river--has been a welcome break the last several days.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Boy, am I HOT! (But not the way I wish I were.)

For the second straight Friday, nuisance circumstances forced me to truncate my bike ride.  While the nuisance had been just some rain on the previous Friday, this past Friday I had a greater menace to deal with: my house's central air conditioning unit had died on Thursday, and I had to spend much of Friday shepherding technicians from a couple of companies through so they could take a look at the equipment and work up their quotes for its replacement.

I wasn't really counting on riding at all Friday, but I still had some afternoon left once the contractors had cleared out, so I went out and rode for an hour.  It felt good to do something physical and take my mind off the tribulations of home ownership for a bit.

I will be living without air conditioning until sometime this coming week.  It's quite a bummer, yes, but at least it's not the worst time for this to happen.  Even though it's starting to get hot here in the Mid South, with daily highs up around 90 degrees Fahrenheit, we haven't yet had the sort of sweltering humidity that July and August always bring here.  I've got the windows open and all the ceiling fans running, along with a couple of extra fans, and that's kept things bearable.  When I attended summer camp from the late 1970s until the early 1990s, I lived in open-air cabins with no AC, and I survived.  Yes, my camp was in the North Carolina mountains where the summers aren't nearly as brutal as they are here in the Mid South, but the hottest days there were about like what I'm experiencing right now.

Yesterday morning I went to the river and paddled for 70 minutes.  There was a wake boat making some nice waves in the harbor as I paddled out toward the river, and I did some brief surfing there.  All was quiet out on the river.  I was feeling sort of tired and sluggish, and after doing a small loop on the river I returned to the harbor hoping that some more surfing behind that wake boat might snap me out of my doldrums.  But by this time the boat was on a trailer on one of the boat ramps, so that ship had, quite literally, sailed.

This morning I went down to the river to do a workout.  Yes, a workout.  If you've paid close attention to my posts the last couple of months, then you know that I haven't really been doing those lately.  Not "serious" ones, anyway.  I've been getting in the boat and having all kinds of fun, surfing barge wakes and stuff like that, and I've engaged all my various gears and energy systems in the process.  But I haven't worked those things in a more organized, focused way.  I haven't even switched on my G.P.S. device during this period.

The truth is that the motivation just hasn't been there.  I'm enjoying paddling as much as ever these days, but making myself the fittest, strongest, fastest paddling machine I can be hasn't been a priority.  There's a complex web of reasons, but chief among them is the aging process: it seems that I've finally reached an age where I'm unable to do things I could do twenty, ten, or even just five years ago.  It's hard to get excited about training myself to average 5:30 per kilometer over 5 to 10 kilometers when not that long ago I was averaging 5:00 per kilometer.  And then there's just the fact that I've been doing this a long, long time, training pretty hard year after year to attain whatever non-elite level might be within my reach.

Maybe the motivation will return by and by.  Maybe it won't.  All I know is that for now I'm more interested in paddling for the general exercise and the time outdoors.

But I do have this race coming up in two weeks up at Suttons Bay, Michigan.  And so for today I decided to do a fairly intense long-sprint workout to grease up my higher gears a little more, or at least to get some clearer idea of my current fitness level.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did four bridge-to-bridge sprints, starting every 8th minute.  Conditions weren't good for fast times: there was a north breeze blowing not that hard, but hard enough to lift the flags that were flying from boats on the harbor.  It was a little demoralizing when I got the first sprint underway and couldn't manage much more than 12 kilometers per hour--that's 5 minutes per kilometer, which as I said above is a pace I could handle for a 5- to 10-kilometer race just a few years ago.  I had to make myself not pay attention to my speed or elapsed time, because it's not a good idea to do that during a workout like this anyway.

What I did want to monitor was my stroke rate: I aimed for no more than 90 strokes per minute because I thought that would allow me to stay under control and produce a good consistent effort over all four sprints.  And that's what I did: my times were 2:15, 2:15, 2:17, 2:16.  Once again, it's hard not to compare myself to my younger versions; according to this post I was doing all four sprints under two minutes just six years ago.  I shouldn't care, because Lord knows nobody else does, but it's hard to watch my powers slip away like that.

Oh well... I plan to do a similar workout later this coming week, and maybe it'll go better.  Other than that I need to get my air conditioning back in service, along with the more normal tying of loose ends before I leave town a week from today.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Summer is almost here, and I'm feeling pretty good

One topic I haven't been discussing much here this spring is the aches and pains in my arms and shoulders and neck area.  And the reason for that is that I've been feeling pretty good.  There are probably a whole variety of reasons for that and I would say that they're largely a mystery to me, but I would like to believe that ONE reason for my lack of upper-body discomfort is my effort to rotate from the hips when I paddle, and derive as much power as possible from my leg-drive.  Doing so takes a lot of pressure off the smaller muscles of the upper torso--the upper back, the neck and shoulders, the biceps, the forearms.

And so, I extend credit and gratitude to Coach Chris Norbury, who alerted me to my inadequate rotation during our training camp in Florida back in January.  I've been working on the issue ever since, and while I'm probably not doing it perfectly, or even all that well--if Chris watched me paddle right now, he very well might lambaste me all over again--I'm pretty sure I'm doing it better than I was back in January.  And, well... that's something.

Meanwhile, lest we think that my physical health picture is completely rosy, just in the last day or so my right big toe has become swollen and sore, to the point that just walking around really kind of hurts.  I can't remember doing anything to cause such a thing-- I haven't stubbed my toe, or dropped anything on it, or anything like that.  Whatever this is, I sure hope it'll run its course in just a day or two.

I paddled for 60 minutes Tuesday morning.  There was little barge traffic on the river, so it was mostly a steady paddle, but I did get to follow a downstream-moving rig on my way back to the harbor.  The waves were small, and it was more like riding the wake of a fellow paddler than outright surfing, but that's okay.  It was a good little workout.  I worked to read the conditions and get as much aid from the waves as I could.

It's getting warm now.  The forecast is showing the daily Fahrenheit highs nudging into the high 80s and low 90s.  It was around 78 degrees when I went down to the river this morning, and by the time I'd finished paddling it was up in the mid 80s on its way to a high of about 90.  Fortunately a light breeze made things pleasant out on the river.  I paddled for 60 minutes at varying paces, and coming back toward the dock in the harbor I timed myself in my bridge-to-bridge sprint, clocking 2 minutes 10 seconds.  That's not a great time for me, but under the circumstances, it was a decent effort.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

In my last post I mentioned a guy named Matt Taylor, who with Lecky Haller competed in the 2000 Olympic Games slalom race in men's double canoe.  The first time I ever saw Matt was in the spring of 1993, at which time I was living in the New York City area.  I wasn't really racing slalom myself yet, but one weekend I went up to watch the annual Rattlesnake Classic on the Housatonic River at Falls Village, Connecticut, and Matt was competing in both double canoe and, in this photo, single canoe.  Note the ugly patch on the stern deck of his boat!

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Patching one boat and paddling another

I was very tempted to skip the bike ride on Friday.  There was some rain falling outside in the morning with more expected later in the day, and my head was deeply immersed in the current project in my woodworking shop.  In the end I compromised a little, riding for just an hour rather than the usual 90-minute loop.  The Internet radar was showing a dry window a little after 8 AM, so I went out and got it done.

It rained off and on the rest of the day, and I was happy to stay in the shop.  My main concern was the woodwork project, but I did find time to patch the crack in the stern of my V10 Sport:

The brown stripe is a strip of Kevlar.  There's a layer of fiberglass on top of it, but fiberglass is transparent once it's saturated in resin.  It’s an unsightly thing, isn’t it?  I've patched my share of boats over the years, but one skill I've never picked up is using gelcoat to match the color of the rest of the boat.

I want my boat to look nice as much as anybody else, I guess, but then again, making a boat look nice doesn't make it faster.  Back in 2000, when I was still racing slalom, one of the teams expected to compete for the U.S. Olympic team spot in men's double canoe was Lecky Haller and Matt Taylor, and at the Olympic trials they had to race in a boat that had been badly damaged by the airline during a training trip to Australia, the Olympic host country that year.  The boat had a big ugly patch like the one pictured above, except it was across the hull amidships, where it was probably more of a detriment to their boat's performance than the one above is to my boat’s.  But Lecky and Matt won the trials anyway, edging out the talented team of David Hepp and Scott McCleskey by the narrowest of margins.  I remind myself of this story every time I'm feeling upset over a broken boat.

I was back in the V10L yesterday, paddling for 70 minutes on a river that was a bit choppy with a south breeze blowing.  I really am surprised how good I’ve felt the first couple of times back in that boat; I thought for sure it would be a tougher adjustment after paddling something more stable.  After all, it's the same boat I could barely handle at all in the Atlantic Ocean during the Blackburn Challenge last summer.  While yesterday’s conditions were nothing like that day in the Atlantic, they commanded some attention, but I felt good and relaxed.  I paddled a loop out on the river, and on my way back to the harbor I surfed a few little bumps that a downstream-moving barge rig was generating.

When I got to the river this morning the wind was light and conditions were placid.  I paddled to the mouth of the harbor and found a barge rig moving upstream, so I ferried out to try some more surfing.  I got several decent rides--maybe even a couple of very good ones.  But the waves' sweet spots were small, and they were wandering pretty far right and left, so no ride lasted long.  I spent maybe five minutes playing around before I decided it was time to move on.  I paddled up the Arkansas bank and looped around back to the harbor and back to the dock to complete 60 minutes in the boat.

This past week has been warm but quite pleasant, especially in the mornings and evenings.  But today we're knocking on the door of just plain hot.  It was 86 degrees Fahrenheit when I finished paddling this morning, and I think it was pushing 90 by the afternoon.  The forecast is showing at least one 90-plus day in the coming week.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

A breakthrough with one boat, trouble with another, and some more muddy surfing

Well, something has finally gone right in my rudder-line replacement project on the V10L.  On Monday I managed to get the new line strung on the starboard side.  I got a rigid wire to feed through the somewhat-damaged tubing, I used epoxy to join the frayed end of the new line to the end of the wire, and I pulled the new line into place without any failure of the joint.

Some work still remained, but it was all stuff in which I was confident of success.  I added some support pieces to shore up what remains of the tubing, and I installed the hatch to cover the 4-inch hole I had to cut in the back deck.  Finally, I adjusted the new lines to calibrate the rudder's response to the pedals the way I like.  After all the grief and anguish this project has put me through for the last several weeks, the V10L doesn't look half bad:

In this photo you can't even see where I cut that hole in the back deck because the hatch I installed there is white just like the boat.  And even close-up it doesn't look bad, because, well... I did a nice neat job of installing it:

The more I think about it, the more I sort of wish the hatch were some wild off-the-wall color--hot pink, day-glo orange, something like that.  You know, just to raise the fun factor a little.  Oh well, what's important is that I can use this boat again.

Turns out it's a very good thing that boat is back in service, because on Tuesday morning I went down to the river and discovered that the V10 Sport that's been stored there had sustained some damage.  In the early hours of Monday morning a thunderstorm moved through here with some strong winds, and apparently the boat got blown off its rack.  When I got to the dock Tuesday somebody had kindly replaced the boat on the rack and re-tied one of the tiedowns, which I guess had slipped off the rack's crossbar (or, maybe, I had forgotten to tie it--I've been known to do that once in a while).  Anyway, it was clear that the stern had come down hard on the marina deck because there was a crack across the hull just aft of the rudder:

Boy... this has been one tough spring for my three surfskis.  And it all started because I thought it was a good idea to change out the rudder lines.  Oy.

At least the damage wasn't so bad that I couldn't paddle the boat.  I paddled to the mouth of the harbor and saw some barge traffic out on the river.  There was a rig coming downstream right then that was producing some unusually nice waves for a down-bound vessel.  I paddled out and hopped on several; the rides were brief but fun.  The waves were moving at weird angles because the pilot was swinging his stern around to line up the barges to pass beneath the Harahan and Frisco and Memphis-Arkansas Bridges.

Because the rig was zooming on down it wasn't long before the good stuff had left me behind, but an upstream-moving rig was emerging from under the Harahan Bridge, so I moved over to do some surfing behind it.  I hopped off the "down" elevator and boarded the "up" one, as it were.

This up-bound vessel was generating the best surfing conditions I've seen behind a barge rig since this day four years ago.  I had to sprint hard for each run, but once I got on one the ride lasted a long time.  The waves were the perfect shape.  They were wandering right and left some, as barge wakes often do, but they weren't wandering that far.  When I felt the wave I was surfing on start to peter out, I often was able to link onto another one a short distance to the right or left.  At times I was flying... at least as much as one can fly while moving against the current of the Mississippi River.  That was the sensation as the beautiful brown water rushed past me.

This rig, too, was hurrying on its way.  Those pilots must have taken Memorial Day off and were making up for lost time.  But I got to do some of the best surfing I'd seen in a long time and headed back toward the harbor with a smile.  Will it be just once every four years that I find barge wakes this good?  Maybe so, but I'll take whatever I can get.

As I paddled up the harbor back to the dock the boat seemed heavy, and I suspected that some water must be getting in through that crack in the stern.  On the dock I drained out maybe a half-gallon.  So just as I had finished one boat-repair job, I found myself with another.

This morning I took the newly-repaired V10L down to the river.  After several weeks of paddling the much-more-stable V10 Sport, I was ready for some awkwardness in this boat, but it didn't take long for me to get used to it.  The main difference was that I felt like I was sitting a little higher in this boat, but that might be because it has a lower freeboard than the V10 Sport does.

The sun was out, and the air was dry and pleasant with a cool east-northeast breeze blowing.  I just paddled a steady 60 minutes.  As I paddled back toward the harbor there was another barge rig coming upstream in the same location as the one I'd surfed behind on Tuesday, and I briefly considered taking a detour to surf some more.  But I was feeling tired, and I had a lot of work to do back at the shop, so I continued on to the harbor and back to the dock.  There will be more barge rigs when I paddle in the future.

I brought the V10 Sport back home with me, and it's now safe and sound in the garage, waiting for me to do some repair on it.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Adam Davis took a selfie as he and I were heading out to paddle around the Loosahatchie Bar a few weeks ago.  I'm paddling my old beat-up mud-stained V12 surfski, the same one that has now, maybe, been forced into retirement by worn-out rudder line tubes that I've replaced a couple of times and don't really feel like replacing again.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Vacation approaches, but there's fun to be had here at home, too

In several weeks I'll be heading out on a little summer vacation.  This one won't be quite as ambitious as recent summer vacations: I'll be gone for just a couple of weeks, and I won't be going as far away as I did in recent summers (New England in '23, and the Pacific Northwest in four of the five summers before that).  But with any luck, I'll have some interesting experiences.  My general destination is the Great Lakes.  I'll start out in Michigan, then head up into Ontario and along the north shore of Lake Superior, round the western end of Superior in Minnesota and Wisconsin, then return south.  The trip will of course include plenty of paddling, including a race on June 22 at Suttons Bay, Michigan.

So, that's something to look forward to.  But until then I've got a lot to deal with in my non-athletic life, including projects in the workshop and a new tenant moving into my rental property.  And there's also the rudder line situation that's caused me so much grief: I would really like to have that V10L surfski back in working order so I can take it on the trip.

Meanwhile, I carry on with the athletic stuff.  On Friday I did my usual 90ish-minute bike ride out to Shelby Farms and back.  It was a good day for riding: while there were thunderstorms moving around the Mid South, here in Memphis the conditions were dry with a pleasant breeze.  Memorial Day weekend is of course the unofficial start of summer, and it's feeling pretty summery, with Fahrenheit temperatures in the mid to high 80s.

The rain was still missing us yesterday morning, and we had sunny skies and a lovely south breeze.  I paddled for 80 minutes, going down below the Harahan and Frisco and Memphis-Arkansas bridges, up along the Arkansas bank, and up above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge before returning to the harbor.  The south breeze kept me cool as long as I paddled into it, but it was quite warm whenever I was paddling north with the wind at my back, a reminder that more oppressively hot days lie ahead this summer.  I also realized I was feeling pretty tired about 50 minutes in.  There was no barge traffic or bumpy conditions of any kind, so the session started to feel like a grind in the late going.

I spent yesterday afternoon making another attempt to string a new rudder line on the starboard side of my V10L surfski.  And again, I failed.  I fear the damage to the tubing might be worse than I'd thought.  At this time I have cut only a small (4-inch diameter) hole in the back deck and I'm hoping to achieve my repairs without making it any bigger, but it's forcing me to work blind most of the time and I still can't tell exactly what the situation is deep in the boat's bowels.

It's all very frustrating, but I think that's all the more reason to keep up a robust athletic routine so I can say I did at least one good thing each day.  This morning's paddling session turned out to be an especially good thing.  When I left the house in the middle of town there was a breeze blowing, but it seemed mild and I didn't give it any thought.  But as I drove over the harbor on the A.W. Willis Bridge, things looked quite lively out on the Mississippi.  Down on the dock it was clear we had some strong wind: one of the houseboat owners has a big blue flag for his preferred presidential candidate on display, and it was flapping as majestically as could be.

I paddled against the wind to the harbor's mouth and found some legitimate downwind conditions out on the river--again, not Miller's Run or Columbia Gorge caliber, but definitely workable.  I left the harbor and headed downriver a ways, thinking I would ride the conditions back north.  Once I was in the middle of the river I found myself in one of those "washing machines," with waves moving seemingly every which way, and I admit I was feeling timid and tense.  I flailed around out there for maybe ten minutes, and then paddled back toward the harbor's mouth because a barge rig was coming down the river and I wanted to give it plenty of room to move by.  Once it was clear I decided to paddle upriver a bit, along the southern reach of Mud Island.  I ferried out into the main channel and found myself looking at some of the nicest downwind conditions I've ever seen on the Mississippi.  Here the runs were more organized, and I was able to relax and apply what I've learned about downwind paddling in the last few years.  I've annotated this map to show what was going on this morning:

I spent a nice long while reading the conditions, sprinting to catch runs, and linking one run to another.  It was just what the doctor ordered to blow off the steam I'd built up fussing with rudder lines and other nuisances of life.  All told I was in the boat 80 minutes this morning, and it set the tone for me to get some good stuff done back here at home this afternoon.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

It's never dull, meteorologically speaking

There was talk of this area hitting 90 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time this year on Tuesday.  I'm not sure if we actually did, but it was close enough.

At least it was a good day to paddle and get wet.  I paddled out of the harbor and onto the Mississippi, where a south wind was producing some small bumps that I played around on.  I have to say that using my more stable boat out there has made such activity a lot more fun.

Some heavy rain moved through here yesterday, and when I looked at the Internet radar this morning I saw more headed this way across the state of Arkansas.  I went down to the river about an hour earlier than usual, hoping I could beat the worst of it.  Getting rained on isn't such a terrible thing, but I didn't want to be out on the water if there was lightning nearby.  I paddled down to the harbor's mouth, where I had an unobstructed view of the western horizon.  I could see dark clouds and what looked like showers across the river.  While I wasn't seeing any lightning, I could hear some occasional thunder.  Then I saw a bright bolt of lightning down around Presidents Island, and decided to head back toward the dock.  As I paddled northward there were some occasional lightning flashes, but the sound of thunder was taking some ten seconds to reach my ears, so I wasn't too worried.  When I reached the A.W. Willis Bridge, a couple of hundred meters south of my marina, I started paddling some back-and-forth laps beneath it and worked on my stroke mechanics.  By this time the rain was starting to come down hard.  Once my time in the boat reached 50 minutes, I returned to the dock and took out.  I changed into dry clothes under the marina's roof and hoped the rain would soon stop so I could put my boat away on its rack without getting soaked.  But the rain just kept falling and falling and falling.  When it finally slacked up a tiny bit, I quickly put the boat away and made a run up the ramp to the parking lot.  The rain kept falling as I drove home and didn't stop for good until after I'd finished lunch.  Then, oddly enough, it turned into a lovely sunny day in the afternoon; more thunderstorms are in the forecast for the next several days, however.

I'm starting to make some more serious plans for some travel next month, and I'll share them here soon.  I hope to include some racing in this trip.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Here's an update on my adventures in rudder line replacement.

We're looking at my V10L surfski, the one I prefer for racing on not-so-rough water.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the tube on the starboard side is broken inside the boat beneath the stern deck.  Making my best guess at the location of the break, I cut a circular hole.  It turns out my guess was pretty good, but if I had it to do over, I'd cut the hole a couple of inches farther forward.  (I will eventually "patch" the hole by installing the hatch I'm holding in the picture.)

It seemed as though the rest of the job would be simple enough from here, until I realized that the rearmost segment of tube has come detached from the hole (indicated by the red arrow) where the line comes out to meet the rudder post bracket.  So I have to find a way to reattach the tube to the hole and seal it so water won't get in the boat that way.  Sigh.

Fortunately my V10 Sport surfski is in good working order at the moment, so I do have a boat to paddle while I wade through this tedious, frustrating task.  Its lines are due for replacement too, but I'm not going to begin to work on those until I've got the V10L back in service.  Right now I don't even want to think about what kind of malignancies are hiding deep inside the V10 Sport.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

More work on both pavement and muddy water

There's been some rain wandering into and out of the greater Memphis area.  The nice thing is it's kept the Fahrenheit temperature in the 70s for most of the week.  But the forecast is showing warmer days ahead.  We might hit 90 degrees for the first time this year in the middle of the week.

I had a good bike ride Friday afternoon.  I did my usual route out the Greater Memphis Greenline, around the lake in Shelby Farms, and back home via the Greenline.  Yes, I do this circuit a lot, and the reason is it's the only route easily accessible from my house that's almost entirely protected from motor vehicle traffic.  To get to any other protected bike trails around here, I would have to ride a long way on city streets or put my bike on the car and drive someplace.

The best thing about Friday is that it was one of those days when I didn’t so much as crank the engine of my car.  Besides riding my bike, I stuck around home and did some shop work.  I like days like that, when life feels nicely uncomplicated.

Some pretty heavy rain was moving in right as I was getting out of bed yesterday morning.  It came down for several hours and was moving out by the time I was heading down to the river.  The temperature was a pleasant 68 degrees.  I paddled for 80 minutes at a variety of paces.  There wasn’t much barge traffic around, and it was probably just as well for me to get a break from chasing wakes.

The cloud cover cleared out overnight, and it was a lovely sunny 75 degrees when I went downtown this morning.  Once again the river was free of barge traffic, so I spent my 60 minutes in the boat working on good rotation.  When I re-entered the harbor I did a good long surge to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.

Both yesterday and today there was significantly less wood floating down the river.  The level is dropping slowly now after cresting during the week, and that should give all the debris a chance to move out.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

An onslaught of wood

I had a chance to do some more barge wake surfing Tuesday morning, as there were three rigs heading upstream on the Memphis riverfront.  I found the waves tough to get on, however.

For the last couple of weeks there has been an impressive amount of wood floating down the Mississippi--tree trunks, branches, and tons of smaller stuff.  While there's not really anything new about such conditions, I this is the longest sustained period of woody debris in the river that I can recall.  Right now paddling upstream or surfing behind an upstream-moving vessel means occasionally having to weave through a gauntlet of logs.  The worst thing is that some of the wood is so waterlogged that it's floating several inches below the surface where I can't see it.  At one point on Tuesday my boat hit a submerged log, stopped dead, and flipped.  I did a quick remount while the pilot of the towboat I was surfing behind was probably marveling at what a goober I was.  And then a little bit later I was paddling up along the Tennessee side and the big surf rudder on my V10 Sport hit a branch that was sticking out from the bank underwater.  The rudder now has a good-sized ding I need to repair.  And quite a few times my paddle hit logs lurking a foot or so beneath the surface.  These are strange days indeed out on that big river.

This morning there was a lot of driftwood and trash floating in the harbor, and at one point I had to stop and dislodge some junk from my rudder.  Once I was out on the river I saw a good bit of driftwood, but maybe not quite as much as on Tuesday.  The river is cresting right now around 26.5 feet on the Memphis gauge, so I expect in the coming days the debris will start to thin out.

I paddled for 60 minutes today.  An upstream-moving barge rig was just above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge as I left the harbor, and I tried to surf its residual waves.  By this time the waves' amplitude was low and their wavelength was long, so I really had to sprint hard to get even a few seconds of surf.  I worked on that for 20 minutes or so before returning to the harbor.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

A couple of weeks ago I discussed the results of the U.S. Olympic team selections in whitewater slalom.  I'd be remiss if I didn't share the flatwater sprint results as well.

Three flatwater athletes will race for the U.S. in Paris.  Nevin Harrison (pictured above) qualified a spot for a U.S. athlete in 200-meter women's single canoe at last year's world championships, and subsequently won the right to fill that spot.  Harrison is the defending Olympic gold medalist in that event, and has also won two world championships.

This past month, Jonas Ecker and Aaron Small won the 500-meter men's double kayak event at the Pan American championships and thereby qualified for the same event in Paris.

Harrison, Ecker, and Small all hail from the greater Seattle-Tacoma area.

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Some great paddling and some so-so riding

I took the weekend off from fighting the rudder-line wars.  So two of my three surfskis remain out of commission, maybe permanently for one of them.

I took a bike ride Friday morning, following my usual route out east on the Greater Memphis Greenline, around the lake in Shelby Farms, and back home via the Greenline.  I felt sort of tired and didn't push the pace.  But it was a beautiful day: the whole week had been muggy and rainy, but those storms early Thursday brought in some cooler, drier air, and Friday was sunny with a high around 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

It was sunny again yesterday, and warmer, but still not so humid.  I had a rather delightful time out on the river.  As I paddled out of the harbor there was a barge rig coming upriver, and I went to inspect the surfing possibilities behind it.  The waves were moving fast, and they were a bit confused because the towboat was turning to line itself up with the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and so surfing wasn't easy.  But I did get a handful of decent rides, and even linked a couple of runs (hard to do with barge wakes).  As the waves started to peter out I paddled down below the Harahan Bridge and then up along the Arkansas bank, most of the way to the HDB.  As I started my ferry back over toward the harbor's entrance I found some good residual waves from that same rig I'd been surfing behind earlier--it was now well north of the HDB, but for some reason waves seem to linger longer around that bridge.  I got to do some more nice surfing.  After that I returned to the harbor and did a couple of strong surges back to the dock.  So all my energy systems got some work during my 80 minutes in the boat.

I couldn't paddle this morning because the handbell group I play with had its last gig of the season.  And then I went to lunch with my mom--it is Mothers' Day, after all.  So my whole Sunday routine was out the window, and by mid afternoon I was feeling utterly lethargic.  It was a reminder of why I prefer to do my athletic stuff in the morning.  Finally, around 4 o'clock, I got myself out on a bike ride, and I rode for a good half-hour before my body finally started to embrace the idea.  After a 70-minute ride, I was still feeling a bit sluggish, but glad to have gotten some blood flowing.

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Arrrrgh.

One of my projects this week has been installing new rudder lines on my three surfskis.  I think the general wisdom is that any surfski paddled regularly should have its lines changed once a year, so the boat I keep down on the riverfront was definitely due for new ones.  Meanwhile, my other two mostly just sit in storage in my garage, but when I took one of them down to Ocean Springs in March I noticed that one of its lines was getting pretty worn right at the rudder post.  So I decided to just change them out on all my boats and head into the summer with some peace of mind on this particular boat-maintenance issue.

The problem is that changing the rudder lines on a surfski is a monumental hassle.  No other task I can think of makes me want to scream impolite words at the top of my lungs like stringing rudder lines does.

The first challenge is to get the new line to feed through the tube inside the boat.  The best-case scenario is to have the old line still in place, because then you can just attach the end of the new line to the end of the old and pull it through.  But... you can't just tie them together, because the knot is too bulky to fit through the tube.  In the past I've used a little piece of electrical tape to join the ends, but you have to make a very neat, very thin tape joint so it will fit through the tube.  And then you have to pull it through very gently, lest the tape joint fail deep inside the boat.

This time around, my strategy has been to fray the end of each line, like so:

and then soak each end in G-flex epoxy resin, twist the two ends together, and let it cure overnight, with the intention of pulling it through the next day:

Each time, the epoxied joint has been too bulky to fit through the tube; so I have to whittle it down with a sharp knife or work on it with a piece of sandpaper.  One of the joints failed during this trimming process, and I had to glue the ends all over again.

(If you are not so fortunate as to have the old lines in place for pulling through the new lines, I know of a couple of things you can try.  One is to feed a stiff wire through the tube, and then use that to pull the new line through.  The challenge with this method attaching the line to the wire in a way that will fit through the tube.  Meanwhile, there are videos on You Tube that show the use of a vacuum cleaner to suck the line through the tube.  I've tried this a couple of times, and I seem to remember having success at least once but having more trouble other times.)

As of this writing I've been working on two of my three skis, and I've successfully installed two of the four new lines.  The other two have raised the frustration level of this project to a new height.  On Tuesday morning, while pulling on the old line to move the new line into place on one of the boats in my garage, the joint hit a snag inside the boat and broke.  Upon further inspection, I realized that the tube was broken inside the boat.  This was bad, because a surfski is a closed shell with no way to get inside short of taking a saw to it.

That is in fact what I ended up doing to my oldest ski when I found its tubes were broken a few years ago.  I hated to do it, but at least by that time the boat was getting old and beat-up and I was using it just for training anyway.  This photo shows what I did:

First I cut a circular hole in the deck aft of the seat bucket.  Peering through this hole, I found that the tubes were broken in many places and would have to be replaced entirely.  To do so, I would have to access the boat's insides closer to the footboard, and I ended up using a circular saw to make slits on either side of the seat.  After much painstaking work I got the new tubes in position and secured them in place, and then, by way of repairing the surgical damage I had done, I installed a hatch on the back deck (I ordered it from West Marine or some such supplier) and used Kevlar and fiberglass seam tape to patch the slits on either side of the seat.  The boat is now rather ugly and at least 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) heavier than it was when it was new, but like I said, it was already sort of beat-up anyway and relegated to training duty.  It has paddled just fine, and that's ultimately all that matters.

The broken tube I discovered Tuesday morning causes me more anguish, because even though I've had this boat eight years, it still feels new to me because I've mostly kept it in the garage and gotten it out only for races.  I was so infuriated by it all that I had to walk away from it and go down to the river to paddle (the whole point of all this work, after all).

I took the other boat from my garage--the one I hadn't messed up yet--down to the river with me because I wanted to bring my training boat back home so I could replace its rudder lines.  The boat I was taking down there happened to be the most stable one I own (V10 Sport), and that was a good thing because there was a strong south wind blowing and there were some pretty legitimate downwind conditions out on the Mississippi.  They weren't epic like the Miller's Run or the Columbia Gorge, but they were more than adequate for practice in reading conditions and linking runs.  And they were ideal for the mood I was in: infuriated with the awful turn my rudder-line-replacement project had taken, I needed to do lots and lots of hard sprints until I was too exhausted to feel angry anymore.  And that's what I did.

I brought the other boat home from the river and spent some time working on it yesterday.  I got one new line strung, but had that glue bond fail on the other one like I mentioned above.

This morning I returned to the river.  Some heavy thunderstorms had moved through overnight, part of the same system that spawned deadly tornados farther east in Tennessee.  By the time I got down to the dock the sun had come out and there was a mild breeze blowing from the northwest.  There would be no downwinding today, but I paddled the V10 Sport out onto the river hoping maybe there would be some barge wakes to ride.  But the river was free of traffic, so I just paddled for 60 minutes, working hard on hip rotation.  With a more stable boat under me I felt comfortable rotating hard out on the river, so much so that my whole pelvic area was quite tired by the time I was finished.

This afternoon I went down to the shop to work on my training boat's other rudder line.  I was expecting this task to be the smoothest yet; after all, should anything go wrong I have access to this boat's innards through that hatch I installed a few years ago.  I shaved down the glue joint so that it would fit through the tube, and began pulling.  The line hit a snag, so I opened the hatch to investigate... and discovered that the tube had broken up into many fragments.  This is a tube that was new just a few years ago.  The only thing I can figure is that when a boat lives outdoors year-round, the tube material can't withstand the constant fluctuation in temperature, with the freezing and thawing and all that.

I'll have to install a new tube, and that'll probably mean taking the circular saw to the edge of the seat bucket again to get the tube properly situated there.

Or...

Maybe it's time to retire this old boat.  Fifteen years is a long life for just about any canoe or kayak, and I've certainly invested a good bit of money and many hours of labor to keep this one going for this long.  It's seen me through hundreds of days of training and exploring, and it feels like an old friend, but perhaps the time has come to take it behind the barn and put it out of its misery.  Sigh.

That would leave me with the V10 Sport that's currently down at the dock (the state of whose insides I have yet to explore), and that other boat in the garage (a V10L) that also has a broken tube.  In that boat I'm pretty sure there's just one break near the stern, and I'm hopeful that I can cut a smaller hole, run the rudder line across the break, and repair the hole with a smaller hatch.

Anyway... what a week I've had, all because of what at first glance looks like some simple routine maintenance.  And yes, I do have sort of an issue with the manufacturer of these boats regarding the durability, accessibility, and repairability of their interior parts, but I'll save that rant for some future post.

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Monday photo feature

John P. Batson of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, competes in the "Nooga Loop" canoe and kayak race on Saturday.  This is a 10.9-mile (17.5-kilometer) race on the Tennessee River at Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Photo by Rick White.

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