Three hours covered in 10 kilometers with just a minor glitch at the end.
We finally left out of Jungmun Beach at 1 p.m. I was about 40 minutes late, and once we got the kayak through the whitewater lapping the shore and me up and safely in after I was standing deeper than usual with water up to my chest, it took Sherrin a long time to settle and stretch in the water. In addition, she took off her full haenyeo wetsuit in the water, as underneath she had her stinger suit on.
Off and moving, we passed magnificent cliffs with Sanbangsan always in the backdrop. The only thing marring the entire landscape is the electrical power plant sandwiched in between, and the nasty discharge polluting the waters.
If not for the power plant, or better yet, before the power plant and the Hwasun port wall were built, I would have ranked this as the best natural landscape around Jeju, hands down.
This was Day 20 for the Jeju Big Swim: Thursday, August 19, 2010.
Not much more to write about. After passing the Hwasun port wall, I got Sherrin to land straight on a far west beach marking our exit point at 4 p.m., and tomorrow's entry point, instead of turning east and wasting 1.5 kilometers of energy to land at Hwasun Beach. And, tomorrow wasting another 1.5 kilometers in the morning. She walked most of the way into the beach and swam around some rocks as I paddled.
When we were about to land on the far west stretch of rock and sand, the boys in blue in their BIG ship came in real close and asked where were we going to land. I pointed and they figured in and around.
The only problem was I made a poor landing decision. I quickly went in, unfortunately got the kayak turned parallel with the whitewater and it dumped me in about two feet of water and capsized the kayak and all the gear. Luckily, it took us a minute to regroup, flip over the kayak, throw everything in again, and drag the kayak up and over the smooth rock to dry land.
-Steve
No comments:
Post a Comment