Feeling the heat

Summer has arrived in Memphis and the Mid South.  That amazing weather we had seems something of the more distant past than the week before last.  Now the humidity is up and the overnight temperature barely dips below 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  The solstice occurred on Friday and with it came a weekend forecast featuring a triple-digit heat index.

And so, once again I settle in for the duration.  I'll have a break or two along the way, including my trip to the Pacific Northwest next month, but around here I'll be paddling in sweltering heat and taking hose baths on the dock afterward.

When I paddled yesterday I was reminded that the river is often the best place to be on a hot summer day here.  There's almost always some kind of a breeze, and yesterday we had a good one from the south.  I was still feeling the effects of Thursday's workout and I just did a steady paddle for 80 minutes.  The Mississippi has come up in the last several weeks--it was 32.3 feet on the Memphis gauge yesterday--and I was able to paddle up onto Dacus Lake for a few minutes before heading back toward the Tennessee side.

Today we had an even stronger south breeze on the river.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then went out onto the river looking to do some kind of "play" workout.  There was no barge traffic in the area, so surfing was out; but a northbound rig had passed through some 20 minutes earlier, so I had small seas driven by the south wind.  I paddled up to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and did a few fast ferries across the river there.  The river is typically a bit rougher near the bridge because of the Loosahatchie Chute rejoining the main channel just upstream, and at the current high water level the eddy below the center piling is big and boily with some mondo-size whirlpools exploding along the eddy lines.  My main objectives during the ferries were to keep paddling, keep the boat moving, and ride any bumps that I could.  I wouldn't say it was a pure downwind workout, but it was good practice staying relaxed and in control in decidedly un-placid conditions.


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