And so it is with paddling long distances, pushing aching muscles to just keep going, and forcing the body to burn away whatever energy it can locate in some long forgotten and fast dwindling stores (one day soon it might stop eating away at my non-existant bum and finish its job burning away the years-old layer of beer and pizza that still thinly clings to my belly). While our training schedules might render us more in line with a Kenyan long distance runner than a Hungarian hammer-thrower, we still need to rest.
A somewhat related phenomenon in this watery part of the world is the way the wind seems to know exactly what we are thinking. Careful not to jinx ourselves, we are cautious with what we say in regards to the weather conditions because it feels as though the wind can hear our every whisper. Unfortunately the wind is like a hard-nosed swimming coach (the fearsome Mr Houge of my youth) forever pushing us to work harder, do more, and get more and more exhausted. Should we begin a day hoping to achieve a long distance, the wind will tease us with a constant headwind. If we attempt a long crossing of a wide bay the wind might help us by blowing gently from our stern quarter for a little while, then stop dead, leaving us to crawl through the water as though it was sand in an endless desert. Should we settle in for a rest, after exhausting ourselves in a headwind all morning, the wind will respond by swinging 180˚ and blowing as a tailwind all afternoon, taunting us like a school bully. Rarely, if ever, is the wind on our side.
Typically during our paddles we aim to take a rest day on the seventh day, our Sabbath, regardless of the day of the week, but hopefully in a location that is suitably hidden that we can relax in peace. Occasionally our rest day is spent trekking into the closest town to restock supplies if we haven't been able to procure the essentials along the way. Solar panels come out to lap up the sunshine like a French nudist and rest days are spent drying out wet gear and fixing things that need a touch up. Our trusty hammocks get a workout, the billy is regularly boiled and the pages of well-thumbed books are slowly turned. Our rest days are sacred, and they recharge our bodies and minds like the batteries charging in the sun.
This week however, our routine was rattled, our seventh day was spent, rather than resting, paddling into the wind into an attempt to find a reasonable spot to stop. Unfortunately there were plenty of beautiful, secluded, sandy, reef-clad beaches that we passed, but all just around dawn, as we were gearing up to make some distance. After several thousand kilometres our standards have become quite firm, the bar has been raised quite high, and the island that we ended up on wasn't quite perfect for a rest day. This however, was something that we did not whisper to the wind and by the time we had decided to push on for one more day, or however many we needed to so that we could find a perfect rest-day location, the wind had set its schedule for the following day. Expecting, of course that we would not be paddling, the wind settled on a fresh nor-westerly, a wind that might actually assist us in our current south-east trajectory.
It must have come as a surprise to the forces of nature when, the following morning we were sipping coffee and packing away the tent well before dawn. Try as it might to reverse the schedule, to reinstate a headwind for the day, the valves had already been opened and the wind was with us. Making the most of the conditions, we paddled past many kilometres of unsuitable mangroves, salt marshes and the delta of Flores's mightiest river which, according to our hopelessly inaccurate map, is a watercourse that is unworthy of a name. Risking total exhaustion, and shortly after refuelling our bodies with the routine quantity of one and a half packets of instant noodles, complete with the 7 vitamins and minerals that the packet claims they contain (although I suspect these said minerals are in fact ingredients in the ink stamped on the plastic wrapper) we headed out for a long, 20km (roughly 3.5 hours) crossing of a wide and shallow bay. Even this act of defiance against the wind, a red rag waved in front of a bull, could not tempt the wind to taunt us with a headwind.
By the time we landed, on a perfect, quiet, white sandy beach under the shade of tall open trees, with a grand view of the surrounding mountains, we had paddled for over eight hours and covered fifty kilometres - not exactly the rest we had hoped for. After eight long days since our last rest day, and with roughly half of Flores behind us, we had tricked the wind, and found our perfect location for a well-deserved day of rest. Bring it on!
Photo: Juz blogging away in his hammock/office on a well-deserved rest day.
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