Theory of the scratchable itch

Daggers of ice













Water falls frozen over at pocket beach Beachy Cove









Rinsing off the salt in the fresh river water in St. Philips

Is there anything worse than an itch you can't scratch? I remember my Dad broke his leg many years ago and often complained about the itch in his full length cast. That wasn't easy for him as he couldn't get at the itchy spot.

I had an itch today too, to get out paddling. It was 2 weeks since I was able to get out for a paddle. No one around to paddle with and a temperature of -1 C. But there was no wind.

I waffled and decided to go to the gym. Coming out of the gym I decided to scratch my itch and hurried home to put the boat on the car. I paddled 5 kms from St. Philips to Portugal Cove. It wasn't a long paddle but its close to home and 10 kms wasn't too bad a way to scratch an itch to paddle.

The snow is almost all gone but there were lots of icicles where the run-off water had frozen. At -1 C it wasn't too cold and after a few minutes I warmed up to a point where I could have shed clothes if I was on land. I had a nice low following swell to push me back to St. Philips and did the obligatory rolls before washing up in the river. The water temp was +1 C but felt warmer because of the heat I had built up.

I ran into paddler Ralph Smith who lives in St. Philips on the way home and he offered to wash my gear out for $10.00. Maybe after the river freezes over Ralph!

So, I scratched my itch and rounded my paddles off to 75 for this year.

Tony :-)