Sweating the days away

Summer is settling into the Mid South for real now.  While the air temperature hasn't risen much above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the humidity has been oppressive all week.

Looking on the bright side as much as I can, I'll just repeat what I said in last weekend's post about the Mississippi River being as nice a place as you can be in this kind of weather.  This is also the time of year when taking a cool bath under the hose on the dock after paddling is something to savor.

I don't often get excited over products, but I have to say that the insulated stainless steel bottles sold by companies like Hydro Flask and Klean Canteen have been a godsend.  Twenty years ago, when my best water bottles were those plastic Nalgene models, I could bring a frozen-solid bottle of water down to the dock with me, and it still would be almost too warm to drink by the time I'd finished paddling on a hot day in July or August.  Nowadays I bring refrigerated water with me in an insulated steel bottle, and it's still nice and cold after an hour or two of paddling.  Here in Memphis we're lucky to have some of the world's best drinking water, and it never tastes better than in those minutes after paddling on a Mid South summer day.

On Tuesday I got together with Joe to paddle a loop of the harbor.  A south breeze kept us reasonably comfortable.

Yesterday was less breezy, and I went out in the boat looking for ways to get wet.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, I headed out onto the Mississippi where three barge rigs were moving upstream in close succession.  I paddled toward the last of them to see what surfing opportunities were on offer.  They weren't the easiest waves to catch but I ended up getting a couple of decent rides along with plenty of hard sprints.  The wave train didn't last long: the barges looked empty and I guess the pilot didn't have the pedal to the metal.

I returned to the harbor and did some re-mount practice--that's another very good use of these stifling hot days.  Then I went back to the dock and gulped water and hosed myself down.


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