Kayaking on East Branch Reservoir...

Thursday, July 11, 2013

My hip problems while kayaking are a great cause for concern.  Within 45 minutes of getting into the kayak, I get severe pains in my left buttocks that radiates down my left hamstring and sometimes into my calf.  No matter how I shift or lean, the pain continues unabated.  Since I looking to be kayaking eight hours a day in a little over two weeks, this could be a problem.  I had an appointment with Nilesh Shah, my sports med doc, the next day and wanted to inflame the area so I’d have something to show him.  With this in mind, I loaded the kayaks on the roof and picked Marie up after work for a trip to the East Branch Reservoir and eagle hunting.

“I’m doing this to see how much pain I can cause myself.  I may not be too pleasant after 40 minutes, but I really don’t care if I’m grumpy with you,” I said.  She’s young, in college, working towards a great career, and has a life ride that looks pretty good.  My unpleasantness could have little effect on her.  Besides, she might get to see an eagle.

“Okay Mr. Rolf…thanks for the warning,” she said as we undid the kayaks and tried to take them from the roof of the Jeep.  I kept lifting up on my end, but hers stayed mysteriously on top on the vehicle, in the rack.  I could see her fingertips reaching for the bottom of the boat, but never quite getting there.

“Would you quit fooling around and grab the thing?  We can’t kayak if it stays on the roof,” I said.

“I…can’t…reach…it…,” she said, straining to push up but running out of vertical.

“Why did I bring a midget,” I mumbled as I went to her end of the boat and sent her to mine.

The water was very high from two weeks of rain and after putting herself through a fog of mosquito spray, we entered the main body of water from the cove.  I immediately spotted a large, flying object across the lake and swooping low.

“Marie…an eagle!” I said excitedly while reaching to pull the camera around my neck to my eyeball.

While fumbling with the Nikon, I watched the eagle glide low over the water and then suddenly drops its talons below the surface and quickly come up and out with a fish ensnared.  It flew off effortlessly towards the grove of trees bordering the water a short distance from its nest. 

“Did you see that ?” I asked in pure delirium.  I’d never witnessed one catching prey and felt pretty lucky.

“Umm…I saw a bird I’m pretty sure,” she said.

Holy shit.  Another one…though I think she was trying to get my goat, Holly style.  We paddled quickly in the direction the eagle had flown and in a few short minutes, found ourselves floating 20 feet off-shore and staring up at our eagle, perched on the branch of a dead tree and tearing away at the flesh of the fish it had just caught.  Absolutely awesome, I thought as I snapped picture after picture.  Marie, I thought, was extremely lucky to be getting this opportunity on her maiden voyage at East Branch.  She had her camera out and was doing the same…and maybe thinking the same.

We moved on to the nest, which appeared to be empty and after snapping some more shots, paddled to the far end of the reservoir where an osprey was gliding and hunting and cliff swallows, nesting under the bridge that separated the main branch of the reservoir from the nature preserve, were flying back and forth madly at our approach.  There were probably 30 nests under the bridge, but the birds spilling from those nests seemed to be so plentiful that they could have made one of the scenes from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie ‘The Birds’.

As we paddled back towards the car, the pain in my buttocks began in earnest…right on time at about 45 minutes into the trip.  I remained pleasant and continued to hunt for more eagle sightings to photograph, but the pain made me paddle a little faster to the takeout point.

 

Once on shore, the pain abated, as it always does, with a little walking.  The good news…I’d seen an eagle catch a fish AND I had pain to show Nilesh the next day.  When I asked Marie how she’d sum up her first trip to East Branch Reservoir, she said, “I saw a bunch of birds.”

God love her.

Kayak duration:  60 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  90 bpm.
Calories burned during workout:  350.