When the wrong thing is the right thing

On Sunday at 5am I embarked to complete what I anticipate will be the second leg of my around Long Island paddle. I started in Shinnicock Bay and paddled to Smith Point Park. The trip is about 25 miles. This map is my actual track as recorded with the MapMyRun app for my Droid.

I managed to get an early start and when I reached Ponquogue bridge, I was treated to a magnificent sunrise. There are actually two Ponquoque bridges, the new one and the old one. The picture is of the new bridge. Most of the old bridge was demolished in the 1980s. What is left is a fishing pier to the North and a SCUBA diving preserve to the South. 


If you are a SCUBA diver and you want to dive this preserve, be careful or you will get swept away from the bridge and be taken for quite a ride. The current running through this area at a non slack tide is deadly extreme. You should enter the 1 hour and 21 minutes after high tide for Shinnecock inlet as published in Newsday. Do not stay in the water any more than about 35 minutes. If you feel the tide start to turn, immediately take a southerly heading and stay under water because the current is stronger on the surface. You shouldn't panic because if you keep heading south you will eventually reach the eddy caused by the structure of the bridge and be able to easily swim back to the bridge itself. I have been diving here before and it is a great dive!! 


As for my paddle, at first the water was calm, then the wind picked up and of course, it was dead against me. After about five hours of continual paddling, my right shoulder started to hurt. Usually, I would just ignore a minor annoyance such as this but this pain seemed different. It felt like it was coming from my rotator cuff. As you might imagine, this freaked me out a bit. I honestly have no time for a shoulder tear right now. As I paddled, I explored different stroke technique. None of them seemed to help. Then, finally, I decided to paddle with my hands. I strapped the paddle to the kayak, leaned forward and did sort-of an Australian crawl. It helped! I was able to keep my shoulders low and thus engaging different muscles. I would have just stopped paddling and rested but every time I stopped paddling, the wind would push me back. I had to keep moving or lose ground. I paddled like this for about a mile. Then I tried using my paddle again but instead of a "proper" stroke, I used mainly my arms. This also helped to rest my shoulder. Slowly, I raised my stroke and was able to paddle normally without shoulder pain. When I got finished over 6.5 hours later, I was exhausted. I burned over 3400 Calories! That is like burning a whole pound of fat in ONE exercise session! My main lesson from this experience is the importance of being body aware. When I paddle, or SCUBA or rock climb, etc. I constantly do mental body scans and try to interpret what I am feeling. This helps me to safely push through minor annoying pain, modify my activity so that I can continue or just find a way to stop and rest.