"For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it." ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

I have stared into the face of my enemy!

The weather is starting to get warmer as spring arrives and that means I'll be spending a lot of time out on the local waterways getting ready for the MR340.  This race makes me nervous.  Not because of the sweltering heat, or the 340miles of river, or the fact that I now have the slowest kayak in our group (The Godzilla Flotilla), or any number of other reasons that it should make me nervous.  It makes me nervous for one reason, Asian Carp!  During a short trip on the Mississippi river I was assaulted by a school of smallish asian carp, and let me tell you it was not fun.  When the first one leapt across my bow it left me with a couple seconds to think "that was cool" before 15 or so of his buddies started jumping all around me.  I had to block one from hitting me in the face.  These were as I said smallish fish between 8-12inches but they were big enough for me to get the idea.
Before the attack I was always told that they only breach in response to the vibration of boat motors.  Now I know this is not true.
There haven't been too many problems with asian carp during the race as far as I can tell so I'm not going to let it bother me too much other than knowing that they are out there!

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