I woke up with a kayak in my head, feeling restless, needing a purpose in life on a day without plans.
It's winter now and I'm unlikely to do much sailing until the weather warms up to a decent temperature; so why not go paddle a kayak instead? It made perfect sense as I lay in bed in the early morning, like it always does lying in bed.
I leaped out of bed, ate, showered, and made the short drive to Paimogo.
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| At Paimogo, I checked the wave conditions on a calm day. Looks ideal near the ramp. Fighting your way in a kayak past breaking waves might be fun on a hot summer day, but miserable in cold weather. (Photograph taken with my new Galaxy S3 Neo smartphone. Bought it for 5 reasons (excuses): can use it as a road and marine chartplotter; takes decent pictures; it's great for reading E-books even without my glasses; it's useful for my holiday home rental business; and it was on sale. |
Next, I roared off to the nearest Decathlon store, in Torres Vedras about 15 km away, to buy a wetsuit. The one I already own is a full-body suit that I use for scraping Jakatar's bottom and cutting lines wrapped in the propeller; besides, it's dirty with antifouling paint.
At Decathlon, I found myself trying on a XXL suit going for €54.95. During the struggle to slide it up my torso, I worried I was going to tear the thing apart. Should have stripped down naked. Should have asked the salesgirl for instructions.
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| OK, maybe this is why I really bought the smartphone! We're living in strange times, I tell you. |
XXL is tight. It must be the height problem, I only weigh 94 kg! So I tried another model, size 2XL, with a price ticket of €59.95.
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| Perfect height, but a bit baggy. |
Then I had a dilemma: one suit felt tight but, on the positive side, it won't fill up with water in the event of an accidental capsize; the other one felt comfortable and better for paddling, but all that extra space would fill with water. Besides, if the kayaking gig falls through, I can always use the tight one for diving, and it's an incentive for losing some weight. The tight one it shall be.
Oh yes, and here is the kayak, a Bic Bilbao, I bought a couple of years ago.
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| Warmer days in Culatra. |
Today I'm going to hunt for the diving shoes that are stored somewhere in the boat, I think. If I go kayaking only once or twice, it's still better than blowing 55 euros on fancy sunglasses. While I was at the store, I bought sunglasses for €5, and that's fancy enough for me.
