New Boat

I got my new boat today, yay. Its the bomb-digity, paddlerific, superfloaty boaty. We got a ton of rain and snow this week, and that means high water. The lehigh is running at like 7000cfs(cubic feet per second), normally, it runs around 400-1000, so its a lot of water.

What I love about paddling is that regardless of what you take with you on the river, you always come back with more. If you kick back on the couch, you leave the couch with what you took with you. You don't find out anything about yourself. Saturday, I'll find out if I'm good enough to paddle at 7000. I should be...theoretically, but there's only one way to prove the hypothesis. Nobody ever answered the question "Can I do it?" by sitting on their ass avoiding trying.

If I paddle at 7000 without any problems, then whats next? I know I'm good enough, and I have to wonder...what else am I good enough for? Probably the lower yough, maybe its time to launch my kayak off of a waterfall and see what happens? When does a person cross the line between "hey, that looks like fun", and "oh my god that freaking dude is insane to try that"? When does a normal person go from thinking a 3 foot drop is hard to thinking that a 20 foot drop is hard?

I can remember my first time in a kayak, it was on flat water, and I flipped over and almost drowned in mid may. I got back in my boat and paddled 9 miles soaking wet and pumped with adrenaline from my previous mishap. I was scared. Controlling the boat felt impossible, like it would flip at any second. Today, I paddle class 2 and 3 with ease and little fear. I don't even think about the boat. I'm normally just paying attention to the river ahead to pick my line.

If I'm not good enough, and I die, actually if I ever die, it'll probably be because I tried something crazy and failed miserably. I'd like my tombstone to read "Here lies Matt, Grand Poomba, at least he tried it."