Magothy Meandering

This has been an odd year for exercise, what with my surgery interrupting just about all activity just as springtime was getting going. I haven't been on an organized CPA paddling trip all year, and so when I packed my car and headed for the put-in I had this weird feeling like when you visit the neighborhood where you grew up - I thought, "This is something I used to do." That little bit of dissociation aside, I made it to the put-in with no issues.

This is the first time I've been on a trip with this trip leader and I quickly learned that he has a loose style of trip leading. He let me join last-minue (that's good) but while he announced that he was going to do a pre-trip briefing he never wound up doing one, and we made it only part-way around group introductions before that effort fell apart. So, I got on the water having no idea where we were going or how long we were going to be out for other than the description on Meetup of "over ten miles".

We crossed the Magothy and went up through some pretty light fog over the top of Gibson Island, then poked into various coves and creeks. Since I like to have a plan, the aimlessness of it got a little frustrating for me after a point - every time I thought we were heading back, we instead turned and headed for another creek. Eventually we all made it back just fine.

And as a bonus, there were three, count 'em three, people on the trip who had coronary bypass surgery in 2017. Rich S., in February, me in March, and another guy who had his in April. I held the winning hand in terms of number of bypasses (my four-of-a-kind beat their three-of-a-kind), but the April dude said that almost a quarter of his heart muscle died - so extra kudos to him for being out on the water so soon!

Strava track: https://www.strava.com/activities/1242534390

Through the fog

Bypass poker winner