Getting my feet wet

The Sazava proved to be the perfect little warm-up for what is to follow on this trip. Water levels were low, which made for a relaxed paddle, though Sarka's a few milimetres thinner in several places now. Often I'd only have a paddle blade's depth to push myself along in. the water was murky and smelled vaguely of rotten fish, but that didn't stop me from swimming in it several times a day when it was hot.

My bedtime's about 9pm. And I try to get up at dawn - 5am - to hit the water early and avoid the wind and heat. though sometimes i am delayed in the morning because i have to spend upwards of an hour picking dozens of slugs off my tent and canoe, then go back and pick off the ones that oozed up again while you were deslugging the other item. i need some unpaid interns to take care of this kind of shit.

I crossed about 40 little dams - most with water flowing over them in varying amounts, and most down a gradual incline (a few were true waterfalls of a metre or two), so if there was enough water flowing over (a rarity), you could paddle right over. This was hazardous, though, as I learned the hard way. There's a moment when your bow is in the flat water below the dam, while your stern is still sticking halfway up the watery ramp, and those are the only two points in contact with anything. So natually the canoe tips violently to one side or the other. It's not quite enough to capsize the boat, but it was enough to throw me out of it once. It was just into a couple of feet of water, though, and I went wading after my canoe. Luckily there was no one around to see this happen (often there's someone swimming or fishing at the dams).

Another way to cross the dams is through these concrete chutes that they all have. I'm not sure if they're constructed for canoeists to go down, or fish to go up (i saw both using them), but if they're for canoeists, they're designed for higher water than I had. I saw some youth groups run a few of them, but their boats are basically open kayaks, and made of some virtually indestructable plastic, and could handle the sharp drop down into the shoot. If i had tried these, it probably would have ended in catastrophy. I did do one successfully actually, but it had no sharp drop at the beginning and had plenty of water flowing through it.

The only other way around the dams was to, of course, portage. This I only had to do a handful of times, because the dam was a waterfall and i couldn't just pull my canoe over it.

Although i often cursed these dams that would come up every few kilometres, they provided a little spice in what otherwise would have been a whole lot of unbroken paddling.

On my last day i got a taste of what the river might have been like before all the dams; after i crossed the last dam the river took off through about 10km of what felt like an endless series of little Class I rapids. They posed no danger; the challenge was to avoid the submerged rocks and save Sarka's hull for future battles. I got pretty pleased with myself at my improving ability to pick out the suspicious looking waves indicating a rock from all the innocent standing waves, and my developing backwards draw which saved my ship from many a looming rock. Though after so long of staring intently at the roiling waters, i felt like my eyes were beginning to play tricks on me. And during the few interludes when I wasn't being propelled relentlessly forward by the current, it felt strange to actually have to paddle. it was good fun - my best day yet.

The day was helped along considerably when, feeling hungry and fatigued from the day (i eventually paddled 45kms that day - by far my longest) i came across in the late afternoon a little riverside bar and had a refreshing beer and ubiqutous klobasa (sausage with mustard and rye bread). It fortified me for the rest of my journey.

There are many little bars, restaurants, and camps along the river, but unfortunately I was a little before the main holiday season, and most of them were closed. When they were open, however, it felt quite civilized to pull over in your canoe for a cold beer. I ended up camping anywhere - in a park, by the riverside, in a closed campground - and never had any problems. i asked permission when possible, but sometimes a thunder storm would be chasing me, beginning to spit rain, and i'd have to pull over and hastily make camp in the first available bit of real estate i could find.

While there were a few stretches with no development along them, most of the river had either towns or cottages along it. And there were fishermen hiding in the bullrushes everywhere, nearly always wearing camo, and always smoking a cigarette (everyone smokes here - and everywhere). They usually pretended i didn't exist, and i tried to do the same - after all, this was probably the first bit of solitude they'd had i ages. The kids i passes would always shout out "Ahoy!" and I'd answer back. One house even had "Ahoj!" painted on its side.

So I nearly always had people around me - many of them extremely tanned older men in speedoes and with huge, distended bellies (half a lifetime of beer with every meal will do that), wandering around their cottage yard, cutting the grass, etc. They looked quite comfortable and contented. But despite being constantly surrounded, hardly anyone spoke English, and my Czech consists of about ten words (please, thank you, beer, water, toilet, and few kinds of food). I'm reduced to one word sentences and lots of pantomime. So it was an isolating experience. I haven't had so much time with my own thoughts for quite awhile. I eventually started to feel a little unhinged, in fact, and could be found singing or babbling to myself - occasionally getting caught out by a well-hidden fisherman.

I almost didn't bring my MP3 player, but am i ever glad i did! The first time i listed to it - laying in the grass after a beer at a YMCA camp - i nearly wept with happiness. i don't know if it was merely that i hadn't heard any good music in 2 weeks, or that it appeased my homesickness to hear this familiar music, but since then Sufjan Stevens, Hawksley Workman, David Gaudet, Gogol Bordello, Lila Downs, Danny Michel, Beirut, Spike Jones and even Tenacious D have been my best friends on this trip.

I've also had a lot more time to read than I anticipated. I quickly finished the two books i brought from home that were supposed to last the whole trip, but found some more in Prague. I particularly enjoyed Louis de Bernier's "A Partisan's Daughter". His books - especially his later ones - are so simple and truthful, perfectly capturing the human tragicomedy we're all players in. This book in particular deals with the tension between excitement and security, idealism and acceptance, and i find these themes very apt for my present circumstances. I am realizing why I'm on this trip: to learn that adventure is not all it's cracked up to be, and to accept modest happiness. I had a good, modestly happy life in wakefield. But i got bored with that so i took this trip. I wanted great excitement, great love, a great, big, wonderful life. But i don't think anyone ever gets to live like that. you can't be human and not be dragged down by something or other. the best you can hope for is a modest, nice sort of happiness, on the whole more good days than bad, and if you find yourself living such a life, well then by god don't throw it away in the hopes of finding something better! you should count yourself lucky if you get to live this much happiness. to ask for more is to comit the ancient mistake of hubris - perhaps the fundamental human flaw. And i think this trip has taught me that - in fact, it already had begun teaching me it before i even left, as i started to already miss what i knew i must soon leave.

so, ok, lesson learned - can i come home now? part of me would like to return now, a wiser man, but i've spent too long thinking about and preparing for this trip to stop now, before it's barely begun. and besides, i got all of you to try to entertain. this is the first time that i've done something with the aim of writing about my personal experiences. in a way i'm trying to turn my life for the next couple of months into a interesting work of art. so far i don't feel like i've succeeded in making it very interesting. but my friend vikki tells me that her and her nicaraguan boyfriend will soon be joining me (too bad i had to take out that third seat!), which, knowing Vikki, will undoubtedly spice things up considerably. I'll try to keep it on the comic side, rather than the tragic.

I'm back in Prague now, taking a day off and stocking up on supplies. We've outfitted the Sarka with 8 barrels of pork, 200 gallons of water, 4 bags of gunpowder, two tortoises (to be later eaten), and 50 gallons of rum (the crew will have to be rationed to a cup a day). Our next safe port is in Karlovy Vary, a two week sail away. It is a spa town; i think I'll need it by then.

To get there I'll have to paddle UP the Ohre river - in total 240km to get to the German border. I think I'll be okay for the first third, but after that it heads up into the hills, and there's whitewater. i checked a website that tells you information about all the rivers in the Czech Republic, and it said that the average speed of the current was 5-7km/h. my top speed paddling solo is probably about 5km/h.

I am so fucked.

If i get stuck the back-up plan is to find some source of transportation for the Sarka, to get it up to a point in the river where i can handle the current. It's either that or wait for reinforcements to arrive. With three paddlers, we should be able to paddle right up the rapids!

I love my canoe wheels! at first i would take all my gear out and awkwardly lift the canoe and try to set it down on top of the wheels, and the supports would never be facing up. anyone watching this exercise would quickly jump to my aid. but now i've worked out a system that is so easy it should be illegal. i don't even have to take my gear out. i just put the wheels on the ground, supports facing up (i figured out that they will stay like that if you're careful) and wheels stopped from rolling with a paddle on the ground. then i lift one end of the canoe out of the water, leaving the other floating, and simply place the middle of the canoe on the wheels. strap it on with a couple of bungees, wheel it across, and repeat process in reverse on the other side. absurdly easy! i haven't even used my hard won yoke once yet - and if i never do i won't be sorry!

i've heard cuckoos for the first time - they sound just like the clocks. i get the feeling they're commenting on me.