Monday, 25.07.2016
Day 23
No paddling
Rathlin O’Birne Island
I did a good load of household jobs today, besides nursing my sore body. I sewed some thin neoprene finger covers for keeping my (arthritis?) middle finger of my right hand warm, as I noticed it is not hurting so much when warmer – or when I had to paddle hard like yesterday the adrenalin rush of survival overlays the pain. Three infectious blisters not getting better by so long paddling hours will also be happy to have some padded cover, see if I can paddle with those things tomorrow! Besides those, I am wearing mostly my open palm neoprene mitts which do the best job for me Can’t paddle with those gloves attached to the paddle shaft, feel not free enough to move around!
The next heroic job was to wash my hair in one of those fresh water pools. They were fed by some small streams, and the water was tanned dark brown. It was windy and chilly, I had a freshwater shower yesterday, so I opted to stay dressed and just bend over to keep the touch with the freezing cold water as short as possible. But it felt so good to be fresh at that end of the body again!
Spooning out my new batch of breakfast bags from the last shopping to another hour, I mixed oats, milk powder, sugar and Nesquick in a zip lock bag ready to eat for each day. I dried out all my wet gear, and the late afternoon was even friendly sunny for another walk over the island. I was already wondering how the house in old days got served by boats – this beach is marginal to land on!
I found actually two old jetties, one at the steep south easterly entrance side of the narrow tunnel channel, one not too far away from my campsite beach to the east. Not really on use or in shape, but this is where they landed larger boats on calm days and on matching tide. No place to land a loaded kayak though at all!
I found a long deep channel with an arch between the two parts of the island, and was thinking I need to paddle through there tomorrow!!! Even by investing a detour…but not sure if I can launch as early as I like to – low tide makes it even worse to get out from this shitty beach! I think I can earliest start at 6.30 am tomorrow to get halfway reasonable out.