Just A Paddler: Another trip to Southport

Once again went to Southport to play in the salt water and soak up the sunshine. This was the first time it was actually HOT when I was down there. But true to Southport, windy, always apparently. My aunt Linda, my mother's sister accompanied me. We shared Coach's loft.

I brought my CD Solstice GTS for the first (and last) time. She is fast, my sword of the sea, but she is also my Dragon, my tricky, slippery serpent. No servant, she. A bit like a half-tame horse.

First day paddling I got my butt handed to me on East Beach of Bald Head Island trying to launch through dumping shore break. Sometimes, after I get crushed on a beach due to my own lack of skill, I ask myself why? Why do I keep doing this to myself? Do I enjoy the pain of failure, or does it make the later success that much sweeter? Just got to wonder.

I was pretty hurt afterwards, worn out. I spent the next four days trying to recuperate. My newly injured right rotator cuff felt like I had snapped the ripped tendon clean through. I also re-injured my mostly healed left rotator cuff, hurt my neck, a laundry list of badness... I am still covered in kayak love bites.

Failure hurts the inner me more than it hurts the physical me most of the time. But this time, I came away as injured physically as psychically.

I am so hurt, broken hearted. I never meant to let anyone besides myself down. "We do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

bloodstream

I had to borrow a boat the last day we went out into the rollers. I was not sure I would be able to handle the Solstice, after all she had kicked the sh*t outta me just a few days before. Hence the deck of the boat in my last photos is blue, the blue of Coach's Romany Surf.

Blue, yeah.

At least I helped my aunt Linda get some time and space to decompress from her own losses, piled up like a steam roller.

We did some sight seeing, therapy shopping, and had some drinks. I got to explore Southport more than ever before.