[Paddlewise] A hard paddle.

Well I just got home from a 4hour paddle and I am absolutely stuffed. It's
strange with all the talk on safety gear etc, that I felt really good when
we set out, but 10 -15 minutes later I was starting to feel the pinch and I
never improved at all.

Conditions where favourable, running with an out going tide, but a stiff
breeze on the nose, should not have been a problem though but I sure did
struggle. We should of reached our destination easily by dusk but it was
well and truly dark by the time we arrived because the group was only
paddling slowly so I could keep up.

Although all of us have paddled at night quite regularly, this particular
time we were not expecting too so none of us were carrying lights.

We also got caught in a dead end channel on the shallows in the dark and had
to back track a kilometre to get out of it and back into the main channel.
The dead end channel is something that I did not know existed and it is not
shown on the charts of the area, it is only marked as shallows and we
thought we were on the outside edge, until we ran out of water.

The interesting thing was the fact that we had no lights, so as I was
struggling along I got to thinking about some of the conversations on the
list of late and I realised that on several occasions I could not see the
other boats at all and me feeling extremely tired by this stage I realised
that had I gotten any worse or capsized I would not of had the strength to
get myself out of trouble and there was a good chance that the others would
not of been able to find me until daylight. A very sobering experience. I
was very pleased to see our finishing point.

Just goes to show that we are all vulnerable.

Cheers from a very tired Wilky.


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