Whooped me arse

Dropped like a felled tree last night.   Wasn’t a long float, hell, wasn’t a ‘float’ at all,  but the total length was 9 miles.   Lots of practice of skill-sets and instruction, so was much more than ‘just’ 9 miles of down river.

And I followed my guts and took BlueJean over the ARC.  Had an absolute BLAST.  Was doing things in BJ that I struggle hard with in the short boats. One set of rapids I went through one assbackwards and still eddied out at the bottom, BACKWARDS, and didn’t drop a turd in the boat.  Rolled through ‘Rootball’ like a freight train and dropped into its eddie like I were in a much shorter boat.  

Those terms ‘dropped in the eddie’,etc,   those were my soft spots I wanted instruction in: ferries, eddies, and peel-outs.   And I was right,  its not me, its the boats that I am having issues with.  (Or maybe it IS me,  but the long boats ‘fit’ my thinking better)

So I am considering a shorter version of BJ as my ‘whitewater ‘ boat.  Shorter because there were spots where length did me an injustice.  Yet the same hull design.     Due to that design being ancient history (in modern kayak ideology) I’m looking at other options as well.  

I know its a matter of confidence more than the boats,,,   There was the one point where the length did me the injustice. and current grabbed the stern cutwater, spinning me out early into a side eddy; I ran with it, re-aligned on the run and hammered down,    Later on, in another similar feature, I dropped an edge and instead of pushing me out, the current lined me up.   Definite learning curves yesterday.

Biggest learning curve was ‘fart around and find out’,,  gotta push the envelope or you never grow.  

Happy Easter to y’all, I’ll have more later after I get home and get my chores outta the way ,,