Yet another balmy break

When I got down to the river around ten o'clock yesterday morning it was sunny and 58 degrees Fahrenheit.  I'd be wearing significantly lighter clothing in the boat than I'd worn earlier in the week.  With the temperature quickly rising into the 60s I arguably could have worn shorts and short sleeves, but at this time of year that just feels wrong, sort of like wearing white slacks before Memorial Day.  I went with lightweight tights under a pair of neoprene shorts and a lightweight long-sleeve shirt under a disintegrating short-sleeve paddling shell that I bought some 25 years ago.

I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, then paddled up the Mississippi for a mile and a half or so.  There was some barge traffic creating turbulence and I tried to stay relaxed and keep my boat gliding over that stuff.

This morning it was time for another longer paddle, and with sunny, warm, and calm conditions it was hard to argue against another trip around the Loosahatchie Bar.  (When conditions are not so ideal, I'll choose to stay on the Tennessee side, maybe paddling several miles up the better-protected waters of the Wolf River.)  I left the dock and paddled to the mouth of the harbor, and on up the Mississippi.

Once I was above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge I realized I was making good time.  It's usually not hard for me to paddle from the dock to the mouth of the Wolf in less than 50 minutes, but I rarely if ever get up there in under 45 minutes.  I decided to push the pace and see if I could do it.  I came close but couldn't quite pull it off: I entered the Wolf at about the 45:40 mark.  I could practically hear the trombone playing that "womp womp womp" sound.

Oh well.  The other thing I always try to do when I paddle around the Bar is break two hours, and at least I was now well positioned to do that.  I backed off the pace a bit until I reached the big eddy just above the Maynard C. Stiles sewage treatment plant.  Then I paddled hard again while ferrying across the main river channel and climbing up and around the north end of the Bar.  With the river flowing at 27.7 feet on the Memphis gauge, the water was plenty deep up there.  Coming down the Loosahatchie Chute I tried to paddle as efficiently as possible, hoping to get some recovery from all the hard upstream paddling while still moving the boat well.

I set myself back several minutes when I stopped to take a picture (which you'll see in tomorrow's "photo feature").  On my tippy surf ski I had to move slowly and carefully, lest my shiny new iPhone go to sleeping with the fishes.

Now I would be cutting it close in terms of breaking two hours, so I pushed the pace back across the river to the mouth of the harbor, and up the harbor to the dock.  I clocked in at just under one hour 58 minutes.

I've spent the remainder of today dead tired.  I'm hoping for some good sleeping tonight.


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