Kayaking and the Leech

The night before heading out to Mt St Helens, I zoomed over to my Mans house and picked up his Kayak.

Once MiniWarrior was ensconced in bed, I trudged out to the garage to prepare the kayak for the trip.

I spent about an hour wrestling air into the boat with the pump that hooks to the cigarette lighter in my truck--then decided that there was no possible way the kayak would FIT into the back of my truck, filled---so I let some air out, then wrestled it into the bed of my truck. Another 20 minutes strapping it down with my cargo net and it was ready for the road trip.

The next day, after visiting all the Observatory sights of Mt St Helens, we headed out to Cold Creek Lake and set about getting the kayaks ready for launch.

Kneeling on the parking lot pavement, we pinned the kayak down and filled it with air. An hour later: sunscreen slathered on, life jackets fastened, hats unearthed and firmly mounted, we trudged down the hill to the lake to begin our kayak adventure.

My Man climbed in first, securing the boat, then MiniWarrior clambered in wedging into the front. I slithered into the vacant spot in the middle--plumpness plus age equals grunting-non-gracefulness.

Much maneuvering and cries of "Oh wait! My leg! Wait! Move just...ow ow ow...yeah there!" later...we cast off to begin our water adventure.

We were just pulling away from the dock when I caught sight of a dark shadow of movement on the side of the kayak where I was gripping it with my hand.

I twisted my head to see what it was. Oh. Just a slug. I thought. No big deal. I went to flick it off the boat then paused when it flattened and started moving forward at a rapid pace.

Towards me!!

"AAAAAAAAGH! A LEECH! A LEECH!" I screamed. There was no scrambling away from it as my plumpness was firmly wedged into the tiny space of the boat. "AHHHGH! AHHHGH!"

My Man poked at it with his kayak paddle to flick it back into the water. It clung to the side of the boat and began frantically slithering towards me, its body stretching out into a point looking like a freakin' alien as it pulled itself up the side.

My Man started bashing at it with the paddle, his efforts fueled by panicked self preservation as I was half climbing out of the boat threatening to tip us all into the leech infested water, and finally managed to whack the possessed blood drinker back into the lake.

"Oh I'm done." I panted, doing the full body heebie-jeebie shudder. "Take me back to the dock."

"You want out?"

"Oh hell yes. I'm done."

That Leech had gone back to his home and spoken of the great white feast that lay wedged in an easy access flotation device. I wasn't going to lay around waiting for the horde to attack.

We pulled up along side the dock and I wheezed, flopped and crawled my way out of the kayak and onto the warm boards. "Oh sweet jesus " I shuddered, twisting my body into contortions checking myself for alien riders.

The troop paddled away while I sat (perfectly content, thank you very much) on the dock, soaking up non Leech infested Sunshine.

1 hour packing kayak into Truck
2 hours driving to lake
1 hour unpacking kayak, filling and launching it.

3 second launch of Kat onto Dock after Leech fiasco...

Priceless.