[Paddlewise] short, mildly disasterous trip report

My last paddle outing had been early last Spring. Since then, the 
pressures of work, and recently the early sunset, have prevented me from 
even taking a kayak to the local lake.

Just incidently, the same factors have drastically reduced my physical 
activity level (read "no exercise").

One Sunday afternoon in December, with clear skies and temperate 
temperatures, I decided I had to get some paddling time in.

Step one - gather paddling equipment and apparel. Easier said than done. 
It's amazing how many things can get lost or buried when you haven't 
looked for them for seven or eight months.

Step two - grab the Prijon from back yard and toss into pickup. Whoops! 
Back up several steps and put down kayak, hurriedly brushing the swarming 
ants off shoulder, arm, and other areas of body.

Get garden hose and hose ants off exterior of kayak where they had been 
nesting between the hull and the tarpaulin.

Pick up kayak again. Put it down again and brush, etc.. Stand kayak 
against house, open stern plug, and hose ants out of the interior of the 
hull, out from under all fittings and braces and everywhere else they 
found to hide. Repeat until drain runs clear of ants. Thank goodness for 
plastic.

Pick up kayak again, carry to truck. Replace drain plug - whoops! Go get 
hose and stretch it out to truck to wash ants off stern where they clung 
after being washed out the drain. Replace plug. Find sponge and sponge 
water out of kayak. OK, that's dry enough - it's getting late! May need a 
flashlight after paddling. Go find flashlight.

Drive to lake. Twilight. Sun dropping behind treetops in the southwest. 
Last boatloads of fishermen putt-sputtering in toward the boat ramp. The 
lake grounds are off limits from one hour after sunset. Sunset is near. I 
AM GOING TO PADDLE MY KAYAK TODAY!

Carry kayak to the water's edge. Put on paddling jacket, spray skirt, and 
PFD. Hmmm - things are kind of snug.

Slide kayak off of beach and sit in - whoops! - still sitting "on." Why 
am I not going down *in*? Surely I haven't been sitting THAT much all 
year - can one's posterior really get WIDER.

Kayak is drifting out into the lake now. I'm still struggling to get my 
rear end down in the seat. Getting the folds of the spray skirt out of 
the way helps, but still the formerly roomy boat is now a snug fit! And I 
can't breath!

Attach spray skirt to boat. Try again. Get a better grip, try to take a 
deep breath. OK, then try to just take a little breath! This neoprene 
tunnel used to be snug. Now I can't expand ny chest to breath. I could be 
found tomorrow, floating around in my kayak, dead from suffocation! The 
boat is rocking rapidly from my struggling to get the skirt attached. One 
more try - good grip, stretching, stretching - made it! - at the cost of 
a pulled muscle in the top of my left thigh. But I'm about to loose 
consciousness from the constriction of my chest! Rolling the neoprene 
down below the level of my diaphragm helps a lot - respiration becomes 
possible again. Of course my belly feels like I'm being pinched in two, 
but at least I can get some air in my lungs.

By now I have drifted 30 or 40 yards from shore - sideways, of course, 
since I didn't waste the time to strap the skeg on. The surface of the 
lake is completely in shadow. The last fishing boat, dimly visible 
through the darkness, is being rammed up onto its trailer at the ramp. I 
pick up my paddle and begin to stroke toward the opposite shore. Whoops! 
Not that way, compensate - now the other way! My body begins to recall 
how to keep this short, blunt little boat going in a straight line. The 
Prijon is an old whitewater boat, bought used from an outfitter in 
Minnesota. It's hull is scarred everywhere from countless trips down 
flint-lined rivers and creeks. It sports a wide, varicolored polyethylene 
patch in the center of its bottom, where the riverbeds scraped its hull 
thin. When it arrived, I found handfuls of flint shards under the seat. 
Now in its retirement it mostly carries me on quiet contemplative trips 
on lakes and on gentler rivers than it once knew.

Now we're flying, at least it seems that way - foam boiling from under 
the bow, little wavelets splashing as we plow through them. When I've 
clocked us with the GPS, I've found we barely get much over 5.5 mph, but 
it feels faster. But today I lack the stamina to keep it up for long - 
got to exercise more.

I stop paddling. The Prijon begins its slow rotation until it's sliding 
backwards along our course. The sky is dark, now. In the east, a nearly 
full, orange moon is rising beneath Jupiter and Saturn, both bright. In 
the west, a painfully beautiful Venus is still high above the glowing 
horizon. In one direction only, toward the highway, there is the constant 
noise of the human world - brightly lit trucks and cars droning by. 
Elsewhere, all around, there is quiet and darkness. The land, the water, 
the trees and other living things, have been here long before the highway 
and the cars, and they will be here long after.

High in the sky - perhaps still in twilight up there - a small plane 
passes over, with it's strobes blinking. Perhaps if I did more 
exercising, I could reduce my blood pressure, get a current medical 
certificate, and go back to flying. But looking around, I know that even 
from the cockpit of this little plastic kayak, I can still "put out my 
hand and touch the face of God."

A little gentle cruising around the near end of the lake, and I notice a 
car moving slowly through the park. Probably the local constabulary 
looking to make sure no-one is still loitering here. I head back in to 
shore and load up the truck. It was a short paddle, but in the end it 
felt worth all the trouble.

*******

The kayaks are now covered with a layer of snow, but the exercise machine 
has been moved into the living room, in front of the television, and I'm 
getting back into a routine of using it. There'll definitely be more 
paddling this year than last.

Ira  Adams
snowbound in south Mississippi

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