The weather turned not so friendly on Sunday: the high was around 52 degrees Fahrenheit, and strong winds from the southeast made it feel ten degrees colder. There were periods of rain, too.
I said goodbye to Nick and drove up to the Bristol Boulevard access to Old Fort Bayou for a 40-minute recovery paddle. Once that chore has been crossed off the list I headed east, crossing into Alabama and getting to the east side of Mobile Bay by way of the George C. Wallace Tunnel.
I was tired from my race weekend, and the crummy weather had put me in a glum mood, and by the early afternoon I was ready to stop. I found a modest motel in Foley, Alabama, waited for the 3 PM check-in time, got myself inside, and took an afternoon nap.
The day got worse before it got better. In the evening I went online hoping to find a place to camp in one of the state parks along the Florida Gulf Coast, only to find that they were all booked solid. I expanded my search farther and farther away from the coast until I finally found a lone vacancy in an RV-park-type campground up near Interstate 10. I booked it for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. It wasn't ideal, but at least I had a place to land for the week.
Monday dawned chilly and breezy, but sunny. That alone was enough to brighten my mood. With only a moderate distance to drive and a day off from paddling, I relaxed and headed east at a leisurely pace along U.S. 98. I encountered some gridlock in places like Pensacola and the forsaken Destin, but I stayed chill and enjoyed the nice day. In the late afternoon I arrived at the RV park and found that it was rather nice for such a place--not the camping experience I'd have had in one of the state parks, certainly, but my tent site was nice and flat, there were no jerks blasting their lowest-common-denominator music or revving loud engines, and the bath house was clean and well-maintained. It was about a half-hour drive down to the beach, so day trips were perfectly feasible.
I spent Tuesday checking out the beachfront communities of Grayton Beach and Seaside. Seaside in particular was a little too wealthy for my taste, but it was good for a couple of hours of people-watching. It must be spring break somewhere because there were a lot of teenagers running around.
Yesterday it was time to get back in the boat. I drove back down to Grayton Beach and carried my boat about a half-mile from the closest public parking space I could find to the water. Out in the Gulf the wind was blowing from the southeast at around 10 miles per hour, and while the conditions were not that big, I thought they were ideal for practicing some of the basics of downwind paddling: keeping my boat moving, watching the waves in front of me for opportunities to advance, knowing when to paddle hard and when to just hang out... stuff like that. I spent 90 minutes on the water paddling a couple of miles into the wind, then downwinding back, and repeating. The conditions got a little bigger as time went on, and by the last lap I was getting some sweet rides. It was tempting to stay out there another half-hour or more, but I was getting tired and I didn't want to ruin myself completely for this Saturday's race, so I tore myself away.
I broke camp this morning and headed east on Florida 20. I was feeling stiff and sore from yesterday's paddle and I wanted to do an easy 40 minutes or so to facilitate recovery. Where the highway crosses the Choctawhatchee River I saw a good public access area, so I stopped and paddled there. Going upstream from the bridge, I paddled up a couple of tributary creeks that quickly disappeared into dense groves of cypress, and I had to turn around. I didn't spot any gators but figured there had to be some around. Whatever the case, it was the sort of paddle that was hard to make myself do because of my achy body, but I think I'll feel a lot better by tomorrow because of it.
I'm now staying in an Air B & B that's some 35 miles away from the town of Apalachicola, where my race is this Saturday. Finding an affordable vacancy was no easy matter on this part of the coast either, and at the time I was happy to get booked into this place, but now I'm having my doubts. The race involves a shuttle, so I may be getting up super-early Saturday morning...
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