I hadn’t planned on taking my kayak out on Sunday. I had paddled 10 miles on Saturday, down the White Oak River, and my back was still sore from lifting boats. However, I was invited to meet a friend who was fishing on the beach, and I knew parking would be bad out there, so I was going to paddle my boat to where he was. Then, at the last second, he called and said he was going to fish in a different location, about 30 miles down the road. I had already packed my gear for an ocean paddle, so I considered going out on the ocean, then I checked the tide levels and found out I had about 30 minutes to low tide. I unloaded my ocean boat and loaded my creek boat, changed into some latex briefs, and headed for the swamp.
When I arrived at the mud, I was really feeling the pain in my back, and my wrists. I didn’t have any idea what I would video tape, if anything, and I had forgotten my breathing tube, which was something I had planned to bring. After a few minutes of staring at the fiddler crabs scurrying across the mud, I decided I’d probably hate myself if I squandered this opportunity to get muddy, so I climbed out of my boat and made my way through the tall, tangled grass.
When I arrived at the spot I had chosen to play, I set up the camera and dove in, head first. There is nothing like a head-first dive into deep mud to commit one’s self to getting muddy! The first dive left 2 small spots of mud on the camera lens. The mud was deep and of perfect consistency, so I went under a couple of times, right-side up and inverted.
I slithered across the mud to check out a foreign object on the other side. I played some more in the deep, black mud, and finally, I made one last dive that left the camera lens badly plastered with mud. I played a bit longer, but that was it for the video camera. I had nothing with me to clean the lens.
This is going to be a busy week in the office, for me, so I may not be releasing any new videos for a while. Summer is nearly over, but the fall can be one of my best sinking seasons, if we don’t get a barrage of hurricanes. So far, the hurricanes have not been able to develop. This could be a record mudding year! 🙂