Paddleboarding.

My friend, Kristen, is really into paddleboarding and introduced it to me last year. So I asked for a paddleboard for Christmas and we waited until the weather got good to go together. Normally, I’m very reluctant to buy equipment for low-use hobbies because I’ve let so many things just sit there unused in the past. But in my middle age, I’ve decided to try to let it go a little. It’s not as if I’m buying a horse (which means a barn) or an actual yacht (which needs a marina), it’s hard for me to buy paddle boards, guitars, etc knowing that some of it isn’t going to be regularly used in the end. But I think in doing so, I’m also closing off various interesting possibilities in my life.

So our first outing was supposed to be yesterday. I hadn’t even unboxed the paddleboard from it’s box! It was a beautiful day, but she had to cancel because her daughter got ill. I was disappointed and I didn’t want to go by myself, but Jeremy said we should go together instead just to try it out and see if Elka would be willing to be trained to ride on the board.

We drove out to lake Needwood and inflated the board with a hand pump.

Here I am breaking the board because I forgot about the fin I had just attached to the bottom of the board (don’t worry, we fixed it when we got home and I ordered the spare part from the company).

I floated out into the lake and Elka was delirious with happiness (maybe worry?) and wanted to be with me.

I pulled the paddleboard up to the launch and tried to convince her to jump on board a few times. She is totally willing and did it, but then promptly jumped off. Jeremy went home and ordered her a life vest. We’ll see how far we get with this!