I am absolutely covered in foam pieces. Head to Toe. The dog has taken to sneakily stealing good pieces of foam and devouring them bit by bit all over the yard. Awesome! Did I mention the dog decided to also dig a hole in the front yard and chase a car up the street? Oh ya. He did. And the neighbors are giving me the hairy eye ball for a) being a weirdo in a boat on the lawn - not to mention one with a huge Tasmanian devil on it, and b) letting some of the foam particles blow in their yard. Sorry. For everyone out there laughing at me...I'm laughing right along with you. I wish I had gotten my camera out before the whole thing started so that I could have documented it all. It was epic!
I knew that outfitting a canoe was hard. I knew it was tedious and very detailed. What I did not bargain for was sitting their desperately trying to get rid of the outer skin for hours so that the glue will hold better. And further more the mess that I would eventually have to try and clean up afterwards.
To make a longer story short, I am using Joel McCune’s old C1 to work on a few of the things I highlighted in Europe as key weak points: balance, leaning on the paddle, and learning effective and minimalist stroke timing and placement, and a multitude of others. My hope is that by forcing myself to relearn to paddle in a C1 that I can effectively focus on building good habits and reforming bad ones.
I will keep you updated on my progress. At this juncture I predict a mass quantity of comedy for onlookers and interesting encounters for myself.
