I’ve been toying with the idea to put the kayak in the water since I got the second Jeep out of storage and had it sitting in the driveway. I figured I should just put the kayak on the Jeep and leave it there…always ready when the impulse struck me. I didn’t…but it was a good plan.
The temperature was in the 60’s again…but so were the winds. They were blowing out of the northwest…pretty common in these parts…and since all of my rides headed east, that meant a tailwind out and a hurricane coming back. I’d done a ride like that a few weeks ago and the painful memory was still fresh. I drove home in my little Honda Civic, being bucked around by the blasts of air which seemed to be taunting me for my ride.
I reached my decision during that trip and when I got home, quickly put the rack on the Jeep and mounted the kayak. An hour later I was putting it in the muddy waters of the Upper Cuyahoga River in Russell Park near Burton. The wind was blowing so hard even there that a chop had formed on the river. Bear in mind there’s only about two feet of water and the rivers about twenty feet wide with trees on both banks…not normally the setting for whitecaps. As I was unloading the kayak…it’s a 17’ sea kayak weighing around 65 pounds and cumbersome to handle from the roof to the water…the wind gusted and grabbed it and smashed my little finger between the roof of the car and the kayak deck.
“Damn,” I yelled to no one at all…since I was alone.
I was bleeding quite profusely, with a large hunk of skin dangling below my fingernail…which was turning black and blue. I had nothing in the car to stem the flow, so I cursed some more, manned up, and finished my preparations. Once in the water, the cool river washed the wound clean and combined with the hurricane force winds, numbed the throbbing finger. I’d lost about a pint of blood at this point, rubbing it into my t-shirt and bandanna, and wishing some hot chicks were there to see how tough I looked. Chicks dig guys covered in blood who aren’t whining…at least I think they do.
The river was extremely high and I could see marks on the trees just off the shore at least 24 inches high that indicated it had been flowing much higher not too long ago. My goal was the bridge over Route 422 for a turn-around…a destination about 45 minutes away and down river. I passed two other kayaker’s on the river, but no one else. There was almost no wildlife…no evidence of beavers other than the numerous lodges, no Great Blue’s a only a few ducks and song birds. The wind though, was a constant companion and would certainly be in my face when I turned around for the return trip.
I had some difficulty keeping the kayak straight in the water…wind tends to want to spin it like a top…and with all the downed trees in the river, navigation was a challenge…but fun. I hit the halfway point right on time, but quickly discovered just how hard the wind was blowing as I headed back upriver. I was going to have trouble making it back to the take out before dark…but so what?
And then the temperature started to drop. By the time I’d made it back to the car, it was easily 15 degrees cooler. It had taken 10 minutes longer for the return trip…and it would have been longer if I hadn’t been putting so much effort into every stroke to keep the boat moving forward as fast as I could get it to go. The good news…it provided a terrific upper body workout.
I was careful not to smash my finger while putting the kayak back on top of the Jeep…I no longer had the energy for the essential cursing should it happen again. My wound…something that might have killed a normal human…had stopped bleeding, but was throbbing as those things do with every beat of my heart. I suppose in the end, I’d tried to defy the wind and avoid a gut-wrenching ride and it had gotten even. Next time, I’ll do what Lance would have done.
Kayak Duration: One hour and 40 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1000.
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