One more full day at work (fingers crossed, could use the hours,) and then its FRIDAY!!! and I get to go pickup my Nordkapp!!!! Whooohooooo!
I mentioned in a previous post that I feel I need to make good on the promise I have been given by the spirits of the world. That promise is to learn to do these things.
Now, I do have a roll, but as you can see in the above, ONE roll is not all there is. At the two minute mark, he starts doing sculling braces and laybacks, and those are the level I want to be at. I ain’t there, yet. BUT, is that a matter of a better boat, or is that just lack of seat time? I say both, but,,,
I have been getting stronger on my edge control, and I am hoping that everything I have been learning about the Nordkapp proves true. IE, its not a beginners boat, and it will push the envelope of your comfort, but will reward you when you need it most. I once told C, a femme Kayaky friend, that I wanted to take my tippier boat when we did a float, and she about flipped! “why tippier?!?!” . Because you don’t learn good technique in a boat so stable that it responds like a cork. That boat was Duh!kee, and as I was reminded in a past weekend, I hit the nail with her ‘liveliness’: she’s quirky and maybe a little vindictive of poor technique. She is the first boat I capsized in rough weather, and she did so so fast, I came up the other side as the word “SHIT!” was leaving my mouth. If I had any clue on rolling at that time, I would have been in a stable position to ‘finish’ the roll. My biggest problem with Duh!k is she is a shoe thief, and she isn’t very comfortable. Those ribs that make up her shape are the thieves of shoes and why I started paddling barefoot, even in winter. The seat problem has more to do with my skinny ass and I can’t add padding without making her even more tippy; like, uncontrollably tippy. Trust me, I tried, and that’s why she ended up being the wallflower for three years. I will keep her for races since I am moving so much in a race, my butt doesn’t stay in one place very long, but for the other stuff I want to learn, I will take that to another boat.
The Nordkapp.
and that clock to pickup is ticking and I am feeling anxious to get her.
BUT, thats not the only clock ticking.
BCE has court (Sept 15th) to get custody of Adrian back. Not sure what the details are and I am sure I don’t need to know, BUT, I do know the type of person that mothered her, and she does NOT need to be in that situation. I am sending as many positive thoughts his way as I can, hoping that things work out for them in a very positive manner.
The clock is ticking around the world, and we don’t know the way the wind is gonna blow when it gets up to speed. Will it be financial meltdown on a world scale? Will it be some Nuclear Power getting its panties in a wad and tossing canned sunshine ‘just cuz’? Or will it be more localized at our Federal level and the Deep State drops all the masks and starts trying to round up ‘Extremist MAGA peeps’? Dunno. Just trying to watch the events unfold as they do and see if anything shows a pattern. Personally, I think when it starts to unfold, its going to open up like a parachute pulled at full speed. And even having a finger on the pulse of things won’t be enough to keep you from being broadsided by it. BUT, having preps in place and having some sort of plan for when things go sideways will make recovering from that broadside that much easier. (and one of those plans should be ‘what If it goes down when I am NOT AT HOME?)
“It can’t happen here” is a denial, and one that has been proven fatal by history. It has happened here, it will happen here again. What “It” is, doesn’t matter: we have had concentration camps. We have had genocides. We have had Hoards wiping out swaths of countryside (Shermans march to the ocean,,,). Being prepared and having back up plans is not a solution, but its sure as shit a better game plan than “HOPE”. Gotta live to see the other side, or there isn’t much point, is there?
And hopefully it will be as quick as that first capsize of Duh!kee, and by the time we are all done saying “SHIT!” it will be over and we can start the clean up.
Yeah, I said ‘hopefully’, but I ain’t holding my breath.
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