Day 85

I figured that since I'm on vacation, I should be able to find the time to make a few extra posts. Also, since it's my last week of my first 90 days, I figured updating more often would be nice for you guys.

My knee has continued to bother me from the Ultimate Frisbee Tournament on Saturday. I wanted to ride my bike this morning, but I need to listen to my body. I preach this stuff so I need to follow my own advice, even though that's extremely difficult sometimes.

Instead of riding or running, I decided to pull out my parent's ocean kayak.

Now, I've been out on these kayak's before. I would venture to say, I've been on kayaks more than 20 times in my life, but not much more than that. I'm not a rookie, but I wouldn't say I'm experienced. Kayaking for me usually looks like this: Get in the water, row out a little bit, rest while enjoying the motion of the ocean, row really fast, rest some more, turn back and try to catch a wave. This whole thing lasts about 15 minutes. Tops.

Today looked different. My brother went with me, so there was some of that competitiveness going on, but I set the bar high to begin with. My brother just wouldn't let me quit. If you've ever been to Cape May NJ (or even if you haven't), you may know that there is a lighthouse. The beach that we go to is called "The Cove Beach." The lighthouse is on the other end of the cove. Over a mile away. A little bit past this lighthouse is a jetty. I wanted to go to the jetty.

 

This image courtesy of TripAdvisor

If you look at this photograph, you can see where the end of the beach is all the way in the background. That's where we went. We launch our boats from about where the two people are looking for seashells to the left of the lifeguard stand. It's far.

So we set out and rowed. It was getting difficult for me because my hands started to hurt. My left hand in particular. I was getting a blister, I had prune fingers, and my left pinky and ring finger on my left hand were hard core cramped.

The current in the water typically pushes with us on the way down to the lighthouse. I was really getting concerned about the current because I figured It would take at least twice as long to get back. When we finally made it to the jetty, we turned around, and found that the current was going the wrong way. Apparently we had been fighting the current the whole first half of our trip, and now it's gonna be with us. SWEET!

So after an hour and a half, we made it back to the beach. We pulled the boats up close to our chairs, opened our books, and enjoyed the breeze.

Oh. And my shoulders hurt like hell. :-)