I Didn't Mean To Predict the Future

My dear daughter and her wonderful energy has worn out our welcome a bit at my sister's house. She's not terribly misbehaving; she's just being three. She and her cousin are (mostly) having lots of fun, but that means lots of running around, squealing, giggling, shouting, occasional time-outs and crying, and more new "rules" than I ever imagined creating. For example, "Please do not play 'Ready, Set, OOF' on top of your cousin."

So in trying to figure out what day and time we would be departing, I was asked if I would like to try paddleboarding again. I actually did. So in the interest of getting in one more opportunity to go out, we decided to go before dinner, since we had figured that I would be leaving early early in the morning.

We again packed up one paddleboard and paddle, 37 towels, a change of clothes for me (see? sometimes I do learn...), two toddlers, a baby, and three adults. We again had to take two cars since both cars are 5-seaters and there are a total of six of us.

We went to the beach that on our last visit had the bacteria warning. It was still up. My brother-in-law commented, "Yeah, but nobody pays any attention to that. See all those families down there? They're letting their kids play in it."

Oddly, I decided I wanted to go anyway and the plan was not to ingest any of the water anyhow. It was very calm and near flat--even almost glassy in a few places. There was only a light breeze, with a few tiny gusts, so I was hoping it would be easier.

I got in and started out kneeling and was going to try and stand but decided, since I had such fabulous luck last time, I would go back to the very shallow area and try to stand there--that way, if I fell, I could theoretically not even get my shorts wet.

Theoretically.

I did get to a stand and was up for a couple of paddle strokes before losing my balance. Unfortunately, I fell butt first and it was just deep enough that I ended up sitting in water up to my neck.

Lovely.

So I climbed back up to my knees and paddled out a little further. I thought I'd try standing up again--besides, I couldn't get much more wet than I already was. When I looked down though, there was a bunch of seaweed. The thought of falling into the seaweed and kicking around in it was not appealing, so I paddled out further, hoping to get past it.

I went out around one of the closer buoys before I decided to try standing up again. I managed to paddle for a bit, but then I'm not sure what happened. All I know is I was vertical, then I was seeing the board shoot out in front of me, although not far enough that I was able to avoid landing on the tail of it on my own tail.

Ow.

Also, discovered that I could get more wet as up until that point, my hair had been dry.

I swam back to catch up to the board and then climbed up on it and managed to make it all the way back to the shore--a fair distance.

I was so proud of myself, even though my legs were jello.

My brother-in-law told me to ride the board all the way in, and the fins were strong enough that they would "catch" on the sand.

"I'm going to faceplant when that happens," I yelled to him.

He said, "Now," indicating that the fins were going to catch.

I faceplanted.

I hadn't meant to predict the future, and really didn't want to, but honestly, even if I had been able to get off of the board gracefully, my legs were so wobbly, I might have faceplanted on the sand anyway.

My brother-in-law congratulated me and asked if I wanted to go out again. I wasn't sure, so he took the paddle and headed out himself. When he did get back in, I decided to head back out again.

I had a bit of a rough start, but quickly got onto my feet and circled around a little ways--standing the whole time. I dropped to my knees again right before hitting the sand and even managed a graceful exit from the board.

I had a hard time walking afterward I'd held my legs so tight and my back wasn't feeling to great, but I actually had a lot of fun. Later, when I was asked if I was going to go get a paddleboard, I did admit that we won't be getting one. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but because I'd probably get a kayak first, and because we need things like a new deck door before I think about a kayak.

We got back, and I started packing to get ready to drive home. We'll see how my back holds up after today's activities and tomorrow's drive, but I'm still glad I went back and did it again.

I'm still not up for surfing though.