The teaser clip from my adventure yesterday is now on-line. See the movies page for a list of all the movies that are currently on-line. (Quicktime 7 required to play most movies)

What a beautiful day it was to be out. The wind has been blowing with a vengeance for the past few days, but today it was relatively calm and sunny. Low tide was late in the afternoon, so it was a great opportunity to ditch work early and go enjoy some mud in the sun. The low tide was really low, and the trip was no disappointment. I added 3 still photos from the trip to the gallery page. I also shot some video while I was playing in the mud. I haven’t had a chance to look at it, yet, but I should have a clip to share, pretty soon.

I forgot to mention, in my previous entry, that I also added a clip to the web-site. It’s an old clip, from the archives. Someone had requested that I post the video we shot when the Loaded Magazine folks were here. So, for a limited time, you can watch the Loaded Magazine clip on-line; if you have Quicktime 7. That clip was also featured in it’s full quality on our “Best of Mudlover” DVD (DVD002).

Sunday, April 12 was a down day for me. I was being troubled by a flood of negative thoughts so I decided I’d better do something to break the cycle. For those who don’t know me that well, I suffer from depression at times, and a few weeks ago I suffered an emotional trauma that left me reeling.
In any case, I set out, yesterday, to explore around a campsite in the national forest. I left late in the day, so I packed for an overnight stay. I got there about 90 minutes before sunset, and the tide was going out. I put my boat on the little tributary that connects with the river right next to the campsite. It was a pretty grueling paddle. There were lots of thorny briars hanging over the rivulet of water I was navigating. The briars took their toll on me. In one case, I tried to brush them aside with my paddle but a branch swung back and the thorns embedded themselves in the side of my face. The branch didn’t break off the bush and the thorns held their grip in my cheek enough to stop my boat which had been moving forward. Ouch! Obviously I freed myself, plucked the thorns from my cheek, and continued on. I found some interesting mud, although most of it was about thigh deep. I might return to explore some more, one day.
I returned to the river to clean up just before sunset. I washed off and went for a walk in the woods, checking out some soft spots, most of which were just over knee deep. As I was coming out of the woods, wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and swim trunks, and muddy from my knees down, a truck load of people showed up to fish in the river. I just acted like there was nothing unusual about slogging through the swamp, went down to the river to wash off, and changed into warmer cloths, since the sun was setting and the air was cooling off fast.
I talked to the people who had arrived while I drank the one beer I had packed. I could have pitched my tent and spent the night, but I opted to drive home after dark. I did take one last photograph before I left.

This would have been a great photo if I had gotten the fisherman in focus. I tried to focus on him, but it was just too dark.

I got the idea to wear some new, white bikini bottoms into the mud as some kind of a spring ritual. I had this vision of walking into the mud and just sinking out of sight ... effortlessly. Of course it never works like that; especially when the mud is thick. In any case, I put on my white bikini briefs, set up my high definition camera, and tried to act like a “virgin”, willingly sacrificing myself to the mud. Unfortunately, the best spot I could find put the sun behind me, so there is more shadow that I would have wanted, but the video turned out Ok.I had to work pretty hard at going under, but the mud was deep enough that I could stand straight and point my toes down without feeling anything solid under my feet. If only I could cancel my buoyancy, so I could just keep sinking ... forever! There is really nothing like being slowly swallowed in bottomless mud. The full video is available in my clip store. It has the ritual sinking sequence, and a few minutes of me struggling to get out of the mud and doing a couple of somersaults in the mud.
If you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed that I have a mudding adventure about once a month, and it’s generally been around this time of the month. That’s because of the moon cycles. We’ve got some great low tides happening this week because of the full moon, but the temperature is falling to near freezing tonight, so I probably won’t be able to exploit the low tides again until May.