Three L’s,,,

I Lived

I Lost

and Lyssa is PISSED!!!!

the 18-54 group takiong off before us “Seniors”,,,   The long green boat was the guy I was hoping to race against this year.  

See that whitish boat to port and the three grey ones to starboard?   Epic V-7 Surfski’s.  This bracket was over for us seakayakers before it began.  

They do wonders in keeping things organized.   There were 120 boats registered this year, but you can’t tell by this pic.

And yah, I lost,,, not dead last, but hind teat all the way.   At the first rapid we approached, around mile 1 I misjudged the pour over, thinking I was hitting the ‘V’ when what I did was bottom out HARD and tip into the downstream side of it.

And that was the beginning of the end for Lyssa and me.   She started taking on water, way more than she ever has before.  not enough to ‘sink’ her, but by mile five my arse was most definitely sitting in water, and I could feel it sloshing around while edgeing for turns.  

That bottoming out ripped gelcoat clean off,  and cracked some glass.  the first two, side by side are dead under neath my seat pan.   I had water in the cockpit, and the furthest aft compartment.   She was tail heavy and getting  more so as time went by.

all repairable, nothing ‘boat killer’ in this, but she is not on water again until they are fixed.    All my dumb fault,,, Misread the river and didn’t check the water levels before leaving.   Thursday the water level was 900cfm,,, today it was 550.   That equates to about 4″ of depth difference and that four inches is why we did some scraping, let alone that horror show above.

as for how I did,,,,

water break around 1:30 timeline, which is that hard dip you see.

Over all, pretty damned steady, even though you can see the slope off in the beginning.   That sudden burst the last 20  to 30 minutes? Me getting pissed off by being passed by a canoe,   I caught back up, but was depleted to pretty much empty as I crossed that line.   Lyssa was dragging pretty good at that time and it took everything I had left.

I’m whooped, sore, and ready for night to fall so I can fall like a felled tree into bed.   Not going to worry about Lyssa at this point; she can’t get any worse for wear sitting in drydock.  All wetgear is hanging to dry.   I’m wrapped up for the day.   

keep on livin’