After a very warm September followed by some unseasonably chilly temperatures, we're finally having a few days of near-perfect fall weather. Yesterday I got in the boat and headed out of the harbor to see what was happening on the big river.
Right at the harbor's mouth I found a barge rig moving upriver and producing some of the nicest surfing waves I'd seen in a while. I went out and got at least a half-dozen nice rides. My downwinding skills are anything but sharp these days, and barge wakes are rarely a true downwind environment anyway, but I managed to link runs a couple of times, and that lifted my spirits a bit in this tough chapter of my athletic life.
I visited the spine surgeon last Monday, and we concluded that my best option for my arm and shoulder achiness is simply to live with it for the time being. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, surgery would restrict the range of motion in my neck, and I consider that worse than what I've currently got; but the doctor pointed out that over time my current condition might worsen, making surgery a more appealing option.
So I'm choosing between bad and worse, and that's a rather disheartening state of affairs. But getting after those barge wakes cheered me up a bit: not only was I able to coax the necessary sprints out of my sore body, but also my cardiovascular fitness seemed up to the task even though I've done just a minimum of paddling and other exercise for the last two months.
I should also note that as tempting as it is to write myself off as an over-the-hill has-been, I've in fact got some good paddling performance still in me. Back on July 15 I raced pretty well for the first half of the Blackburn Challenge, and the trouble I had in the second half wasn't because of my nerve and muscle woes.
As I re-entered the harbor yesterday, a small boat with an outboard motor came zooming in along with me. I quickly moved over to see if I could catch its wake, and when the two guys in the boat saw what I was doing, they shouted their approval and cooperated with me. We cruised up the lower stretch of the harbor around 8 miles per hour (12.9 kilometers per hour) until we hit a no-wake zone and had to knock it off.
The Mississippi River dropped below -12.0 feet on the Memphis gauge for the first time ever in the middle of last week, but it had risen to -10.5 feet by the time I got back down there this morning. It's forecast to be up to -9.4 feet by a week from now, and that's some serious high water compared to what we've had lately. I could no longer see the bottom in that spot I posted photos of last weekend.
I paddled out of the harbor hoping to find some more good wakes to surf, but the barge traffic was idle. So I settled for an hour of steady paddling.
There was a lot of floating litter in the harbor, largely because of the rising water level, I expect. As I went along I picked up bits of trash until the space just fore of my footboard was nearly overflowing. Do such deeds of good citizenship make me feel smug and superior? Maybe. But I would submit that my main motivation is my desire to paddle on water that's not all littered up.
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