Day 26

Day 26

It’s lunch time as I start this days post. I am trying to get past a serious low point mentally. The last 6 days have been exhausting and zero fun. The river is a big flooded mess, half a mile wide and no where for the current to go. The water wants to go down channel but it can’t so it tries to go out to the sides but there is no room there ether. So it simply rolls, twists and runs up stream in places. The wind has also been blowing 10 to 20 upstream almost without stop. Days of making less than 2 mph having me questioning what I am doing, it seems like a complete waste of time and energy. I am forced to paddle non stop for hours on end, if I stop paddling for even a moment the canoe is spinning in a circle, running upstream with wind or being slammed into the shore. 12 hours or more of non stop labor results in about 25 miles when we should be making double that or better. After 3 and half hours of paddling this morning we stopped at a marina to rest our arms and I told Shawn I just cant see any logic in what we are doing and that I have not have one really enjoyable moment in 6 days. I was ready to take an extended break or quit but that is not how you finish a trip like this. I don't know if I did take a week break if the river level would drop enough to matter, I feel dammed if I do dammed if I don't. Shawn had some words of encouragement and a Face book post my sister Dana made both helped to steam the flow of negativity in my mind. We are waiting out the worst of the days heat here at the marina, I hope the second half of the day will be better. It is frustrating not to be able to do anything I want, at least in hiking I can always dig deep and push through no matter the conditions but that is not the case here.

We knocked out a few more miles after our break. We tired to rent a slip in a marina in Wianoa but again the people said no, we don't do that. I don't know if I am not using the right words but over and over people marina employees act completely confused when try to rent a boat slip, say no and we paddle on past row after row of empty boat slips. The highlight of the day was finding a tiny sandbar campsite. There was a family on a boat already beached there and they shared cold beer and fresh fruit with us.