2/5 – Good reminder and appreciated change of plan.

The plan of having a weekend with only watching canoe polo, sitting in the sun for a bit, perhaps go for an easy paddle or run and drinking the odd beers, was quickly revised to a weekend of playing myself. I barely managed to arrive at the club yesterday morning before the guys were on the mission of finding me a kayak, which I would fit in and with some descent footrests. And as in the rest of the world when it comes to kayaking equipment, and most other sports and hobbies as well, there are not many things that cannot be sorted with duct tape. And if it can’t be fixed with the silver wonder, it’s really broken…for sure. A few minutes later I was suddenly lined up to play for the team with players from all over Brazil, the Renegades, the keen ones who don’t have any teams at home but still want to play, just like me. More than six months with hardly touching a polo ball and with hours in my kayak, which would be easy to count, I felt anything but ready to take on the Brazilian champs for a game. Can’t really claim that it was my best game in history, but probably not the worst either. Most of yesterday and today was thus spent in a kayak, playing games with a bunch of Brazilian guys, I have no idea why quite a few cameras seemed to be directed towards the female blonde among the lot. Great fun of course, and luckily it also gave me a good reminder of why I love the sport so much. I have a tendency to suppress how much I miss doing things, if I can’t practise them where I am at the moment. If long enough time passes without me being busy with it, it’s like my brain turns on this self-protection function so I won’t miss the things I cannot do anyways. Ice yachting is probably the best example of it, was so long ago that I probably need to write it down somewhere to remember how much fun I think it was…is. Canoe polo was scary enough seeming to head that way after the last few months of boxing classes and kite surfing. And I honestly thought that I would be happy with just watching the games this weekend, without getting on the pitch myself. But the second I saw the goals, the glass water and the people warming up on the side, I could have done a lot of things to get on a team. Luckily, I didn’t share those thoughts with anyone, but got a spot anyways.

So to summarize, this weekend was exactly what my canoe polo part of my brain needed at this stage. And if the Brazilian rock stars need a water girl in Milan, I’m at their service.

Photos to come…just need to figure out how to transfer them from my borrowed camera…you would think it was only to plug the cable in, but apparently not. - check, PC required. Thanks so much for lending me your camera by the way Deep, very much appreciated.