Paddleboarding…Mud Bath

I went paddling a few nights ago. Warm day, high tide. You can never tell what the ocean (or lagoon, lake, river) will be like until you get right there. So many variables: wind, tides, temperature, sunny or foggy or rainy, moon (and planetary) cycle, but the most important factor to me is the surface of the water. If it’s glassy, I don’t care about any of the rest of it. My (Joe Bark 12′ Surftek) paddleboard skims across the water, I get a bow wave going, a joy to paddle.

   I ended up taking a mud bath, for the first time in months. It’s one of those things, like jumping under a cold waterfall, that you’re always glad you did, but that the part of your brain concerned with comfort, resists. I told a couple of friends at the dock that’s what I was going to do, so had to do it. Paddled a ways…shorty wetsuit off (not visible to anyone), smeared as much of my body as I could reach with mud, which in this case had sand in it,…let dry in sun a few minutes, then swam in a channel a bit, then washed it off. Boy did I feel good.

   Got home, took outdoor solar shower, heated by nothin but sunshine…then shot of grappa…stylin…turned out to be exfoliating…spa treatment…skin really smooth afterwards…simple pleasures of life…so much you can do right around wherever you live…just look around…