The Long Recovery - Year Two

Two years ago today I fell off my bicycle, and inflicted significant damage to my left arm and shoulder. To recap, I dislocated my arm, broke it in three places, broke a bone in my shoulder and suffered assorted muscle and ligament damage. My two and a half hour surgery stretched to four hours as the doctor found more damage to repair as he implanted a permanent plate and ten pins. I was off work for almost three months and in physio for six. I was out of my kayak for 161 days.
My arm and shoulder continue to recover slowly. Last year, it was still prone to bouts of stiffness and soreness. This continues to be the case; however, these bouts of aching tightness are much less common. Last year, a day did not go by that my shoulder would not remind me through a twinge or an ache or just general stiffness that it had been brutally traumatized. This year, my arm and shoulder often go for days without reminding me.
The mobility in my left arm is still not normal, and likely will never completely recover fully. For the most part it's pretty good, except when I have to reach up over my head, and that occasionally makes loading kayaks onto my van an interesting proposition. It's still not as strong as it used to be as there was a lot of scar tissue and muscle damage, and some muscle had to be used to stabilize my shoulder and arm to repair my shoulder with an Open Bankart repair.
But all in all, after two years, the shoulder works pretty well. I've been back kayaking and bicycling for 18 months now, and my shoulder rarely interferes with either activity.
The irony is that the day before my accident, I took my first kayak rolling lesson, and my instructor was keen to remind us to be careful as rolling improperly could result in a dislocated shoulder. And less than 24 hours later, I did exactly that...and then some. Now I feel secure enough in my shoulder's capabilities to try rolling again. Time to book more pool time!

Ice, Hawks, Tunnels -- oh my!

We had another great paddle last Sunday. It was a cold day, but we bravely set out into Portage Inlet. As we rounded the first point, Paula was ahead of us. Suddenly, she started whooping and shouting. "Ice!" she cried. Ahead of us, the Inlet had a thin sheen of ice on top. Paula had barrelled into it and soon the rest of us were into the icefield. Six little ice breakers.

The ice was very thin, maybe 5mm if that, although there seemed to be the occasional section that was a little thicker. What an odd sensation to paddle through ice. We often joke about the water getting thicker when we paddle, but this water was solid! One expects to hear a splash when one's paddle hits the water, but all we heard was a crunch.
Stroke. Crunch. Stroke. Crunch.
We were also scaring all the birds away. Our six kayaks plowing through ice were making quite a racket as we cracked the ice around us, sending flocks of birds hundreds of metres away into frenzied flight. No doubt they thought the demons of hell were almost upon them.

We knew it was cold, but we never thought we'd be out breaking the ice. Karl figured that there must be a small layer of fresh water on top of the saltier Inlet water.

We went up Craigflower Creek and found this tunnel which runs under the Trans Canada nera the Helmcken overpass.

Ooooh, it's pretty scary, eh kids?

The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. As we left the tunnel, we discovered that there were a lot of rocks in the water here, so we had to be careful. We made it through, but it took a little maneuvering.

The navigable portion of the creek ended just beyond the tunnel and the rocks.
So there was nothing to do but turn around and head back through the tunnel. There was a bit of a bottle-neck as we entered....

...but it was a perfect time to practice some doo-wop.

We ended up singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." The Tokens have nothing to worry about.

Back in the light of day, Karl and I were lagging behind the others when he pointed to his right. "Hey, is that a hawk in the tree?"

And there he was, a small hawk that didn't seem the least bit worried about or interested in us.

Eagles

I took these yesterday while kayaking around Albert Head.

Heron's Looking at You, Kid

Took a couple of nice pics of a heron while kayaking today....

This Looks Like Fun!

It's Official: The Weather Sucks

The members of our unofficial kayaking group and I have found ourselves thinking that the weather this year has been worse for kayaking than last year. We all recall a great spring for paddling in 2006, with nary a cloudy day.
We have had some great weather this year. A week ago today was the warmest day ever recorded in Victoria, but on the other hand our planned paddle only three days previous to that was cancelled due to rainy weather. And on the gripping hand, most of the good days have seemed to have come during the week, while the weekend weather has turned bad. And weekday paddles don't work for all of us -- some of us have to work for a living.
So with our planned trip to Discovery Island this Saturday possibly threatened because of a forecast of heavy rain, I decided to check the facts. I consulted our past kayak blog entries to see if our memories are valid. In terms of weather, was last year a better paddling year?


I returned to paddling on April 8 this year after recovering from my accident, so I compared the paddles from April 8 to July 18 in both years. As it turns out, in each year there were 20 paddles documented in the blog during this period.
The Results:

2006 paddles (Apr 8 - July 18)
55% - cloudy
5% - cloudy and rainy
10% - foggy
25% - sunny
5% - cancelled due to bad weather

2007 paddles (Apr 8 - July 18)
45% - cloudy
15% - cloudy and rainy
25% - sunny
15% - cancelled due to bad weather

The proportions of bad weather to sunny weather seems to be about the same; one paddle in four was under sunny skies. But even though there's been the same proportion of unsunny weather this spring, the weather would seem to be have been a little worse as we've cancelled more trips this year and gone out on more rainy days.
So the perception that this year's weather is worse seems to be accurate. Adding to this is the fact that we did have an amazing Spring last year. Out of 13 pre-April 8 trips in 2006, seven were on cloudy days and six were on sunny days, a ratio of nearly 50-50. This year is a little harder to judge as pre-April 8 trips are not as well documented in the blog. However, the three that we have photographic evidence for shows one sunny paddle, one cloudy paddle and one snowy paddle. A small sample size to be sure, but it leans towards to another checkmark in the 2007 Bad Weather column.
Further adding to the perception would be the miserable Fall last year. Prior to my accident in late November, all three of our planned November paddles were wiped out by bad weather, and November, December and January were marked by an incredible series of nearly two dozen fierce and destructive windstorms in the area, which resulted in many cancelled paddles. All this makes it seem like it has been a long time without a good run of sunny paddles.
What does this all mean, apart from the fact that I wasted an evening hunched over my keyboard with a Diet Coke figuring this out? Well not much, except that sunny paddles don't come along every day. They come along only one in every four paddling days apparently, so enjoy them when you get them.

Heron

Here's a pic of a heron that I took while kayaking a few weeks ago.

Me in a Kayak

I don't have many pictures of me in a kayak (for obvious reasons). But thanks to Alison, here's me in a Current Design Titan LV...


...and a Delta 18.



These pics are from Paddlefest this past weekend.

This Eagle Has Landed

We spotted this eagle while out kayaking yesterday.

Deer Sighting

You don't expect to see deer very often when kayaking, but we saw some on the weekend.

Okay, not exactly seals, but we won't complain too much.

Breakfast, Anyone?

Sunday's paddle was an example of great minds thinking alike. And yes, even though the minds in question were Bernie's and mine, it still all worked out okay in the end.
Bernie suggested a paddle at Thetis Lake and further suggested that we arrive an hour earlier than our usual meeting time of 9:00 am. His thought was that if we met at 8:00 am, we should get good parking spots and avoid all the early morning Sunday dog walkers.
I countered that we could meet at 8:00 am, but we didn't have to launch right away... we could have breakfast on the shore.
And thus was born The Breakfast Paddle.

Bernie make fire.... and food.

After a yummy breakfast of poached eggs, lamb sausage, and wraps, we napped for an hour. Well, no, not really. But we did get into a discussion of water bottles and we soon discovered that between the five of us, we had nine bottles. Clearly, we're a bunch of heavy drinkers. Nine water bottles? For Thetis Lake?? Louise and I only had one each, so between Paula, Bernie and Alison, they averaged two and a third bottles each. I know it pays to be prepared but this is ridiculous!

On the other hand, we are a bunch of gearheads.

And away we go.

Not much in the way of wildlife today...

...but it sure is pretty.

A nice day to just float and see where you end up.

Mind you, you have to give The Killer Goose plenty of room.

And them the rain came!

Time to head back -- quickly!

Posable Heron

Yesterday out at Cadboro Bay, this heron wanted to be a star!

The Long Recovery Week 20

Despite my prediction in the last installment that it might be at least a month before I'd be back on the water or on my bike, a few days ago my physio-therapist gave me permission to kayak and ride again. So not being a person to let moss grow under my feet, mainly because then they smell icky and turn green, it was time to return to action with a short paddle at Elk Lake.
The Usual Gang showed up: Alison, Paula, Louise, Bernie, and myself. Even the elusive Dennis appeared.

My left arm is still weak, so getting in and out was a bit of a challenge. I tried a couple of times on land and it was doable. So I got into my kayak and Paula pushed me off.

And now, 161 days after my last paddle, I can only paraphrase Bill Murray from the film What About Bob?: I'm paddling! I'm paddling!

Louise soon hit the water, while Dennis decided to wave goodbye and go home. No, just kidding. It was good to have the gang out on the water again.

Bernie headed out.

Dennis decided that I was taking too many pictures of Bernie, so he made sure that Bernie's face was hidden in this picture.

It was busy out on the lake today... the rowing club was having a big celebration this weekend and was using much of the lake, but that was okay. We were just doing a small, short paddle today, because I didn't want to overdo it on my first paddle.

So we paddled gently and watched the races.

My shoulder survived reasonably well. It was sore and stiff, but not overly so. The hardest part was tying down the kayaks onto the van. Holding my arms up while tying off the straps took a lot of effort. But I did it! Or rather, we did it, as everyone was very keen to help. Afterwards, The Gang presented me with a Challenge Trophy, for overcoming a challenge!

Ah, bliss!