Yesterday morning I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then headed out onto the Mississippi hoping to find some barge wakes to surf.
There was a rig coming downstream that was generating some good-sized waves. As I paddled out toward them some men on the deck started hooting and hollering at me. I couldn't tell whether they were cheering me on or shouting at me to get lost. Then the pilot cut the engines way back, and I began to sense that they did indeed have a problem with me riding their wake. Then again, it's been my experience that when a pilot is truly annoyed with a paddler's behavior, he'll give an angry blast of his horn or deliver a stern rebuke over his P.A. system, and I heard nothing of the sort this time. Eventually the engines powered back up, but the waves were wandering back and forth so much that I couldn't get a good ride. I gave up around the time that I was passing beneath the old bridges below downtown.
Looking downriver I saw another rig making its way upstream. It was at least twenty minutes away, so I took out below the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge and took a breather and did some stretching. As the vessel neared the bridge I got back in the boat and paddled up the Arkansas bank a few hundred meters before ferrying out and seeing what I could do. The waves had a slight confusion to them but after a few tries I managed to get several decent rides.
After some ten minutes of that I was gasping for breath and getting hot under the blazing sun. I ferried over to the Tennessee bank and paddled up into the harbor, where I flipped my boat and cooled off for a few minutes. I did remounts from both sides of the boat--I guess one good thing about the hot summers here is that I end up getting plenty of remount practice.
Another hot one was shaping up as I went back out in the boat this morning. After a warmup and another three 8-strokers, I found a barge rig moving up the Mississippi just out of the mouth of the harbor. I paddled a brisk pace up the big eddy near the southern tip of Mud Island, then ferried out to try my hand at surfing once more. Once again I found waves that were not in an organized train, and the water was very confused from the churning of the towboat's props. I threw in one hard sprint after another but couldn't quite manage a sweet ride, and I had to keep paddling hard to sustain the rides I did get. But in the end I was satisfied. One thing I work on every time I surf is reading the waves and trying to sprint at just the right moment: I remember in South Africa having Dawid Mocke behind me shouting "Okay... Go! NOW!!" and I would try to snap a picture in my mind of where I was on a swell at that instant. So that's one way I have fun even in less-than-ideal conditions. And if nothing else, the frequent sprints are a good workout.
I paddled easy back into the harbor, and did some more remount practice there followed by a hose bath back at the dock.
In other news, John Wellens has completed his source-to-sea expedition on the Mississippi River. It took him 41 days to make the journey from Lake Itasca in Minnesota to the Head of Passes in Louisiana. That's a very quick trip. I think several months is not unusual.
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