Disappointment

Been and paddled: -5 (feels like -8), NW 3m/s, full sun shine. It can’t be better on the last day of January. A few strokes and you are gliding into vastness and stillness of the fjord, it’s only you and a few birds, who are still inhabiting the place. The mundane boredom of the past week – gone. The pain of the wrecked hip – gone. You made it again: you are on the water and moving and no one around…

…well, no one, except your companion, who fancies himself a singer and who happened to own the kayak, you are paddling in, and it all can go to hell any given moment, if you don’t contain yourself.
Which you usually do.

Success is not given. An obstacle is expected at every step of the enterprise: the garage door might get stuck so that you can’t manage it and there’s nothing else to do, but to abort the journey. The traffic might get stuck for so long, that there’s nothing else to do, but to abort the journey. The car is old, to put it mildly, so no comments. The ice at the perch might be too thick, that there’s nothing else to do, but to abort the paddling. Yes, you drove 110 km (the route includes a ferry) and there’s nothing else to do, but to turn around and go home. It is in the calculus and you’ve prepared to face it as a grown-up.

But when you made it and on… When you on the water and paddling… When you are already made the first third of the trip, just got that “at least!” feeling, when the tension started to seep off you and relaxation on its way… Your companion says: “There’s fog and we are to turn around and paddle as fast as possible to get from it.”

Wut? It’s a sea smoke, goossake man!, and there’s no wind, no waves, no boats and we have GPS in my mobile.

Goose – facking sake – and he insisted and I turned around.

The very first paddling that’s a complete disappointment. 7 km in 2 hours and I hated the last half of it. Pure primordial hate.


Saw a fox on the way back.