Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Turning The Corner At 50


After I finish posting this I'll head out for my daily paddle. It will be the 50th paddle I've gone on in the past 53 days in my attempt to paddle every day for 100 days. I have missed three days since I started. Two were the result of traveling to Delmarva and the other was a scheduling problem which gave me no free time to paddle.

The first 50 days have been the easy ones. While the weather has ranged from glorious, warm, sunny days to cold, blustery, rainy ones, it has always been a pleasure to get out there and launch. The past few days have not been as easy however. When it's cold and rainy on the lake, it's very tempting to take a 'shore day' and not go out. Staying by the warm fire and reading a good book seems so much more interesting. However, each time I head out on the lake something interesting takes place. Yesterday, for example, a Great Blue Heron burst out of the trees just ahead of me and flew off across my bow. I knew there were a few of these large birds on the lake, but I've never seen one in a tree before. I'm beginning to see migratory ducks now as well. Common mergansers are almost everywhere and I have seldom seen these migrants until I started paddling daily.

So I head now into the second half of the challenge I made to myself last August. These 50 paddles will get tougher as the weather changes slowly into winter. The water is still relatively warm, so I haven't had to switch into my drysuit, but soon that will come and just getting ready to paddle will take longer. Snow and ice will force me to move to another launch site. I will have to begin car-topping my boat as the boat-house will be out of reach by car.

Wish me luck!

50/100

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck!

Silbs said...

You're over the hump. The rest is down hill. Go with the flow and stay healthy.