10 THINGS I LEARNED FROM YESTERDAY’S STORM

Yesterday when I was running back and forth in my sandals in the rain, I knew that I would pay for it today.

It isn’t that bad, but it sure is an inconvenience, I still don’t know where the bruise on my left foot came from?

So what did I learn from yesterday’s Kyak in the Thunderstorm.

1. When the weather forecast has thundershowers in the afternoon, pay more attention to what’s on the other side of the mountains/hills.

2. Don’t waste time getting to shore, once you hear thunder off in the distance.

3. Sit and wait for a bit before taking off running in sandals when it is raining. The storm might blow over fairly quickly, we could have paddled back if we had waited 45 minutes.

4. Make sure that you have the vehicle keys with you (extra trips are not good for the feet when running in sandals in the rain and loose dirt on the side of the road).

5. Use a good antibiotic cream to help the healing process.

I also did learn quite a bit about myself as well and that the training I learned in the Coast Guard was invaluable in this emergency situation:

1. You need to immediately formulate a plan,

2. Adapt the plan to situation (instead of forcing the situation to meet the plan, which never works) and make sure that you stay flexible when things don’t go according to your plan, you can change it to meet the current needs.

3. That nature is in control and if you fight it, you loose. You have to use it to help you any way you can.

4. Not panicking and being able to look for opportunities at critical points because you haven’t panicked can save your butt.

5. Finally that we did everything right yesterday and are able to be here to write about it is a great thing.

Yes - yesterday was pretty eye opening for me, but we were also very lucky to get out safely, with only a minor inconvenience to our day.

Finally, how much I do love my wife and how I would have felt if anything bad had had happened to her yesterday.

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

As always -- I will not go quietly into the night and I will make a difference…therefore, the journey continues.