Blown away

I went kayaking the other morning and the bay was like glass. That’s the way I like it. I am not looking for a challenge. Dragging that two-person, 60-lb boat down to the shoreline is challenge enough. I always do a thorough bug and snake check on it before casting off. I just know that one day I am going to be 500 yards offshore when snake crawls out from some hidden space. It’s like I can see a vision of it happening. I am definitely going to panic, throw myself overboard and then figure out what to do while holding onto the side of the kayak. But I digress from the kayak story. I paddled over to the big rock, which, BTW, looks completely different when viewed from the water! (see photo) Just as I made it to the rock, the winds kicked up and started blowing strongly from off shore. It was intent on pushing me nearly to the LIPA plant in Northport. I had to paddle strongly on one side only. It was like three stokes forward and two back. A relaxing, tranquil outing had turned on a dime. The wind, or El Diablo, as I named it, was trying to tell me who’s boss. The spot on the shore that I was aiming for never seemed to get closer, despite my mad, constant paddling. At least if I died out here, I thought to myself, it will be with really buff-looking upper arms. I thought about George Clooney in “The Perfect Storm.” I think about George Clooney a lot anyway, even when I am not close to drowning. I thought about poor Tom Hanks in “Castaway” and how he never gave up. Then about 200 yards off shore I looked down into the water and realized that it was so shallow I could have hopped out and walked it the rest of the way. But I didn’t. I paddled the rest of the way because I had about a dozen fishermen watching and I do have some pride.