Covered 10.5 miles in three hours on Dog River today. It was a day of lead-gray skies and lead-gray water, with enough wind to feather my paddle and mutter a few curses under my breath while I was beating up into it on my way back. There was a slight chop close to the bay.
It's the farthest I've paddled yet. Degrading weather caused me to abandon my original hare-brained idea to paddle from Navco Park all the way to the Mobile Yacht Club, which would have made it a 13- to 14-mile round trip.
Return route was the reverse of the outbound. 5.25 miles out and back.
I endured brief periods of drizzle; enjoyed every bit of it. I like cloudy days with imminent rain, and even the rain. Nice and quiet. Kept as dry as a duck with the new sprayskirt, at least until I got back to the park and got out. All the water that pooled on the skirt drained right down the back of my pants and pant legs the instant I pulled it off the coaming. Bastard. It's also just barely the right size for my kayak, so putting it on took a few minutes of shouting, cursing, and struggle. It came loose at a few inopportune moments too.
No photography today, since I was a dumbass and took the camera out with dead batteries; only had spares for the GPS. Dog River is still recovering from Katrina; it's pretty interesting to see what's been done and what remains to be done. Wish someone would get the dead trees out of mid- channel (also, something in the water, about 40 yards offshore near Bryant drive, dug a pretty clean, 1 mm-deep gouge in the bottom of my kayak today. couldn't have been a tree, maybe some metal debris? I wasn't about to stick my hand in the water and find out).
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