Thursday, March 13, 2014

Just when you thought . . . .

That it might be over and we'd get a break, winter clenches its brutal fist
And more is promised for Saturday. Meanwhile I am laid up with a wrenched back barely able to walk or stand. Through the years every now and then I tweak my back usually doing something simple like reaching for a cup in the kitchen cupboard, and it usually goes away after three or four days. This time it seems I really managed to mess it up bad. It happened on Tuesday morning as I was shoveling Monday night's sleet off the deck and suddenly I felt like I got hit by a baseball bat in the small of the back. Had everything I could do to keep from falling down. So now I am doing the shuffle like that silly Honda robot we have all seen on TV. Hopefully it passes soon. It all dates back to an injury suffered in my early twenties while working as a mason's tender. I had loaded a days worth of materials and had unloaded about 200 cinder blocks (breeze blocks) from the flat bed truck and the last two got me. Lifting and turning seems to be what sets it off.

I suppose my kayak rolling days are done for. Yours truly about 6 years ago rolling a skin - on - frame replica of 1931 Disko Bay kayak at Walden Pond .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT8OwFWeOUk

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5 comments:

  1. HippoMarch 13, 2014 at 4:56 PM

    That must be an exhausting way to move through the water in a canoe, surely paddling is easier? No wonder you have a dicky back!

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    1. Mike SilviusMarch 13, 2014 at 6:12 PM

      I suppose that explains why we never went to far from shore and just spent hours flipping over practicing one of the 36 different maneuvers that the Greenladers use to right their Kayaks. The Pond Scum they called us. As for the messed up back, like I said the first time It happened I was carrying cinderblocks in my early 20s. But the injury and root case of the problem could have been caused by one of the numerous skateboard, pushbike, motorbike or car accidents.

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  2. Gorges SmytheMarch 13, 2014 at 7:27 PM

    It'll disappear quickly when the heat-wave hits!

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  3. Mike Oscar HotelMarch 14, 2014 at 4:15 PM

    That kayak is awesome. Is it yours?

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  4. Mike SilviusMarch 14, 2014 at 5:14 PM

    No, that particular one was built by Brian Shulz. It is a replica of a 1931 Disko bay Greenland kayak.
    http://www.capefalconkayak.com/1931disko.html
    I built six kayaks myself two stitch and glue plywood and 4 skin on frame kayaks but none were true scaled replicas of museum specimens as this one. Mine were just built using traditional anthropometric methods. I need to dig up some pictures and post them. I have sold all but one of them. Here are a couple more vids of yours truly doing a walrus pull.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-o54h7ADrk
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsjXwZOuE_A
    Walrus pull is a maneuver that simulates an entanglement with the harpoon line when hunting walrus. In competition as here 5 guys pull on a line that wraps under the kayak and is tide off on the aft deck, so the pull wants to flip you away form the direction of travel. Got me second place in the competition in Burlington.

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