There's now less than a week to go before I make a little road trip to open the season. The plan is to race at Ocean Springs on Saturday, spend the following week working my way eastward along the Gulf Coast, and then race at Apalachicola, Florida, on April 6.
But until then, there's plenty to do here at home. Yesterday I paddled easy while participating in a litter-pickup event in the harbor. Crews of volunteers lined the banks filling big bags with the litter deposited there by the recent flood-level waters. I collected flotsam out on the water and also maneuvered my boat into the flooded woodlands to get the trash that the people on the bank couldn't reach. My tippy surf ski is definitely not the best vessel for such duty, but as one of the most avid recreational users of the Memphis riverfront I thought it was important to be out there letting the other volunteers know they were making the place better for people like me. In the past I've typically been the lone paddler taking part in these litter pickups, and always sort of felt like "that guy," but yesterday I saw at least four or five other canoes and kayaks collecting litter on the water, and I dared to entertain the notion that I'd created a movement.
Bright sunshine bathed us as we went about our chores yesterday, but it was pouring down rain when I got up this morning. The radar showed that the rain was on its way out, but I went down to the river expecting to paddle under cloudy skies. Then the clouds broke and the sun came out, and I regretted leaving my sunglasses at home.
As I paddled toward the mouth of the harbor, I warmed up and did three 12-stroke sprints. Why twelve strokes instead of the usual eight? In the week leading up to a race I like to stretch the sprints out a little and get a few more strokes in once the boat is up to speed.
I headed up the Mississippi with the intention of crossing to the other side and paddling on Dacus Lake. There was quite a bit of barge traffic in both directions, and I waited for what looked like a safe gap to start my ferry across. I got about halfway across the river before I realized that the upstream-bound rig was moving much faster than I'd thought--I was even a little astonished at the progress it was making against the river's current at high water. I knew I would have to hoof it to complete the ferry, and I paddled as hard as I could. The pilot blew his horn at me, and that told me that he wasn't so comfortable with the situation either. I suppose we could argue all day about how close a call it was; once I was finally out of its path there was still a good quarter-mile of space between us. But I prefer to have a bit more margin for error than that.
I was happy to paddle on over into Dacus Lake, where no commercial vessels dare go. With the Mississippi flowing at 37.5 feet on the Memphis gauge there's some fairly strong current over there, and I stayed close to the inside of the bend to avoid as much of it as I could. I paddled maybe two miles up the lake before turning around and heading back toward the city. By this time the south wind was picking up and the water was quite choppy, the waves occasionally splashing into my seat bucket. Once I was back into the river's main channel most of the barge traffic had moved out, but the wind prolonged the rough water it had left behind. By the time I was back in the harbor I felt like I'd had a little of everything thrown at me, and that's the Mississippi River at its best. Even the harbor was choppy as I cruised with the wind at my back to complete a 120-minute paddle.
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