Adrift at sea!

We didn't have to wait long for this latest roof repair - Pete (the builder) and Nacho (the worker) were here before 8:00.  The premise today: take out the flashing around the suspect roof vent, replace, seal and re-shingle that area...

Here's what he pulled off the vent...

That red circle shows three small holes where the galvanized flashing had rusted through.  I am hoping this takes care of the little nagging leak we have been dealing with.

They had that job done in a little over an hour.  I asked about the rest of the roof... "Looks good."

We have a norther that is supposed to blow in by Wednesday that is kicking butt up north.  It won't be "winter" like they are getting - our high on Thursday is supposed to be 61º with a strong north wind.  In fact, most of the next week looks to be windy and rainy.  Glad we got the roof attended today - it will give us the opportunity to test out the repair.

With that kind of forecast, I decided it would be the last opportunity to get some paddleboarding in for a while.  It is breezy today, but will probably be around 80º for a high.  Looking down the canal, it didn't look that windy.  I tossed the board in and paddled my way down the canal.

I could see the wind ripples at the end of our canal... I knew it would be more of a workout coming back against that wind at the end of the canal.  I turned east with a pleasant tailwind.  I would guess it was blowing about 10 to 12 mph.  By the time I got two canals over, the wind had really kicked up... to the point I was working hard just to get turned around!  Paddling with my normal stroke, I wasn't make any forward progress - when I would switch from one side of the board to the other, the wind was actually blowing me backwards.  Well, this isn't much fun.

I hunkered down and dug in with the paddle... now, keep in mind I do this for the pleasure of being on the water... you don't get a body like this by exercising.  Digging in hard got me moving, with the added excitement of getting almost sideways to the wind as I switched sides to paddle.  The wind darn near blew me off the board.  Twice.

I considered options: getting to the closest dock and carrying the board back home.  Or, tough it out on the board and try paddling even harder.  I really dug in with the paddle, trying to stay reasonably close to the docks in that area to get a break from the wind.  My arms were tired, but my thighs were burning... seriously, I think I was putting dents in the board with my toes trying to dig in through my water-shoes.  It probably isn't possible to dent an inflatable board.

Slowly, I was making progress in the right direction.  This was not the furthest I've paddled, but it was certainly the most exhausting.  I was overcoming the thoughts I had of being blown out to sea... which would be pretty darn hard, considering I was in canals in the middle of an island, and about 6 miles away from "the sea."  ;-)

Back at our dock, Joan was painting the door to our storage area under the deck... "How was your paddle?"

"Fine.  A little breezy."  It didn't seem very manly to say, "I didn't think I was EVER going to get back!!"  My legs were like rubber when I plopped onto our dock.

When I went inside to clean up, I took a moment to check weather... temperature 75º, wind out of the south at 20, gusting to 25, occasionally higher.  Felt like a lot higher.  ;-)

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The temperature in the Black Hills at this same time was 17º.  Brrrrrrrrrrr!!