Dichroic Reflections

swamp rowing

I went rowing this morning on actual water, more or less. The conditions were beautiful: enough breeze to dry my sweat without ruffling the water, cool enough that I was thinking about my rowing instead of how much I hate overheating. The sky was still dark that I could see stars as I carried my oars down, with the Hunter bringing the first harbinger of Fall.

There was only one problem. If you had seen me, your first thought would probably have been, "How is she rowing on sod?" I mean, really, it's bad when you can hear your boat cutting through the vegetation; at one point I thought I could just get out and walk back to the beach.

It's probably best illustrated by a photo I took of Rudder last Friday:
(More photos here.)

I saw something this morning I'd never seen before: one guy was out in a single, sinking, but slowly, so his boat was under all the vegetation and his body was above. It looked as if he were sitting on the grass. I never did get the whole story about that, but someone in a safety launch was coaching him and got him out before he'd even gotten entirely wet.
Other than that it was a good row, and I even got in more distance than I'd thought I would. 28K for the week so far, and if all goes well, I should just about double that this week. Another half-marathon Saturday, oh joy. The last one took most of the weekend to recover from. This one I can either do Saturday late morning after flying and then have to be lively enough for the get-together we're hosting for RUdder's coworkers that night, or do it Sunday morning after the get-together and hope I'm coherent enough for work Monday. All things considered, including Monday's erg piece, it's probably better to do it Saturday and have Sunday to recover.