While last Sunday's bob around Trinidad Head hardly made me fearless, it did toughen me. Prior to that paddle, anything other than a glassy surface would keep me from the water. To be out on the bay enjoying a smooth paddle, only to be caught off guard by the wake stirred up by a passing vessel would totally ruin the excursion. I am now much more daring. Of course, with courage comes the sore muscles that I'm still feeling a couple days later.Each day, on the way south to the CR campus, we drive over the Elk River Slough. Often, the morning light tempts me to stop in a spot CHP would NOT approve of to record the sky reflected in the water. Looking east from the south bound lanes is pretty in the morning but the view disappears when you're driving northbound. Being ON the water is the only option. When I took up kayaking, I knew the Elk River Slough was a journey I wanted to take and, last Saturday, I got my wish.
This was a much smaller group - just five of us interested in the quiet paddle - but we made it back behind the mobile home park on the lower east side of Humboldt Hill. We paddled till the snags would allow us to paddle no further. We spooked a few cows grazing in the bottoms. While cows make for a bucolic scene, quite frankly their runoff made staying IN the boat the only option; I did not want to swim in that swill and don't much care for the idea of it flushing into my ocean but I suppose the fish have survived this long, right? Right?!
Two and a half hours of pretty much constant strokes left my arms like noodles. As we exited the slough into the Bay, we felt mighty small as we watched the passage of a fuel barge and it's escorts then braved the chop whipped up by the wind to exit back on the beach on the North Spit. One more paddle survived and relished.