Aha! The sun was shining and the tide was low around midday. I think my tide chart is a little off, though, because the tide was low when I arrived, and I should have been 30 minutes early. The good news is that I did get immersed in some wonderful, thick, deep mud. That was just about all that went well, though.
The audio recorder that I recently drowned and managed to get working, stopped working. I had to use the Nikon camera for audio, and that’s never a good deal. There wasn’t any significant wind, so at least the audio wasn’t destroyed by wind noise.
My first sink was a good, old-fashioned, vertical sink to the point of total immersion. The mud was thick, so the sink was slow and sensuous. It was good, and it got me very aroused. The second catastrophe struck when I pulled myself out of the thick mud. I’m still not sure what I did, but I hurt my left knee badly enough that I had to drag that leg along with my arm to keep the pain in the tolerable range. If I tried to pull my left leg up normally, the pain was excruciating.
Once I got out of the mud, I reset my cameras and laid myself down on the mud so I could enjoy some “me” time before I limped back to my boat in defeat. I had about 30 minutes left, before the tide would start coming in. I didn’t actually last that long, before I started getting chilled. The sun was very warm, but the water and the surface of the mud were both pretty cool. The mud was fairly warm, deeper down, but my knee wasn’t going to survive another deep sink.
When I got cold, I very carefully got out of the mud and limped back to my boat with some of my gear, leaving most of it behind for a second trip. The cleanup was exhilarating, to say the least, but the cold water really helped my knee, which made my trip back for my gear a lot more bearable. Having washed off, it was a lot easier to collect my camera gear and put it away, without getting mud all over it.
After returning to my boat with the rest of my gear, I managed to get dressed in dry clothes and get into my boat without too much trouble. I was worried that I’d have trouble getting the boat up the bank, when I got back to my car, but my knee seemed to be improving rapidly. As it was, I got my boat loaded without too much trouble and made my way home without any additional mishaps.
Since my arrival home, I’ve disassembled my recorder and sprayed it down, again, with contact cleaner. I’ll find out, after it’s had some time to dry out, if it’s going to work, or if I’m just going to have to write it off as a total loss. My knee has gotten worse from sitting at my desk, so I guess I’m going to need some physical therapy to get it moving, again. I’m not sure what I did to it for it to be giving me so much pain, but I suppose I twisted it funny, while pulling it up from the thick mud. This is the first time I’ve ever hurt a knee while mudding, and I’ve worked them much harder in the past; especially in the clay pit. This is what I get for taking 6 weeks off from mudding. My body has gone to shit.
Well, at least I got out and got some mud, today. I was going to go back out tomorrow, but now I might have to reconsider that plan.