Rolling Clinic

Louise and I zipped down to Thetis Lake after work last night for a rolling clinic with Yves of Go Kayak.
Louise has never felt terribly comfortable if her kayak was anything but upside-up, but she certainly gave it her all.

Yves was a terrific teacher, and we learned a lot. Now that Louise has a boat that she really likes, it's time to get a little more serious about practicing again, and this was a good way to start.

Trip Length: .23 km
YTD: 153.34 km
More pictures are here.

Practice Makes Closer to Perfect

This morning Louise and I headed out to Thetis Lake so that she could get a practice session in her new boat under her belt. This meant that we were going to get dunked in the water.
Doesn't she looked thrilled with this idea?

However, I was keen to start.


Before we began our practice in earnest, we went for a quick little jaunt along the shore, and we spotted a heron.

Since the point of today was to spend more time in the water than on it, I hadn't brought my main camera, only my back-up Pentax Optio W90 which was a shame as this heron was totally calm and unperturbed as I approached. I got in fairly close and would have got some awesome pics with the big camera. Ah, c'est la vie.

First we practiced our edges and bracing....

...then we tried something we saw in Gordon Brown's latest DVD, a balance exercise where the kayaker sits on the deck just behind the cockpit and slowly shuffles themselves around in a circle. Sometime it went well....

....often it didn't.

It is not as easy as it looks. Gordon Brown makes it look easy, but of course he's probably done it 14,000,000 times. One thing we noticed while watching the DVD last night in preparation for today was that his Valley kayak sits a lot lower in the water than our thermoformed Deltas, but that's just the nature of these boats. I presume these sorts of balancing skills are slightly easier in a boat that rides lower in the water, the same with rescue skills. Which isn't to say they are easy.

Then we moved onto rescues as Louise tried to figure out how to get back into her new boat. I have to say the paddle float rescues weren't pretty, but they worked.

We also tried some assisted rescues which went well, then I tried some solo rescues of my own.


Then, battered and bruised, it was time to get warm. To the coffee shop!

Trip Length: 1.42
YTD: 126.10 km
More pictures are here.

Kayak Roll, 1975-style

Here's a short video from 1975 by Russ Nichols, apparently the first film to demonstrate a kayak roll. The cast of the film were well-known kayakers of the era. A nice little piece of history and instruction.

Tidal Currents Course

Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a long wait, but that wait may finally be over. May I present, in all its glory, summer!

Saturday may have been the first day I ventured outside without a jacket since last September. And Sunday promised to be sunny and warm, some might even say "hot." It would eventually hit 21 degrees in the afternoon, and it must have been the hottest day since last autumn.

It was under these bright sunny skies that Louise and I participated in a Tidal Currents course put on by the fine folks at Ocean River Sports. Long-time readers of this blog may recall that we took the course last year under conditions that were less than ideal, and Ocean River gave everyone in the course a do-over. Out of the six people on the course today, four of them were from last year's adventure. Another person had a fair amount of experience, and as for the last student, he'd been in his kayak in a lake, but this was the first time he'd been out on the ocean. Talk about jumping in with both feet!

Louise looks thrilled at the prospect of being out in the currents again.

This was also the first test of the new hip pads we installed in her kayak last week.

It really was a beautiful day. Thin clouds slowly drifted by on a light breeze. Discovery and Chatham Islands were calling us....

...but we stuck close to shore and headed out to Ten Mile Point.

We've paddled here lots of times, but today we were planning to be there at maximum current. Our instructor Gary estimated the current at about four knots. Max current was early today, so he wanted us on the water right away to take advantage of it. He would deal with the theory part later back on the beach.

We huddled together in an eddy while Gary quickly checked the lay of the land...um, I mean water.

Ten Mile Point is a rocky area with many outcroppings and islets. Gary found three main currents runing through the rocks: a mild one near the shore, a second stronger one further out, and a third, stronger still, and futher out again.
Gary moved us to the mild current to demonstrate how to peel into a current, but as he hit the current and planted his low brace, a sea lion popped up from behind a nearby rock, possbily annoyed that he now had to share the ocean with us. Gary returned and demonstrated the maneuver again as clearly the class had been distracted.

From there, we moved to medium current, then to the fast current. Louise was feeling a little apprehensive and hung back at the medium wave with Janette, the co-instructor. She is still feeling a little unsure in her boat, and she dislikes being around large sealife and the sea lion had spooked her. What she didn't realize was that when she stayed back, the sea lion popped up right behind her without her noticing! But she quickly gathered her courage and joined us out in an eddy near the strong current.


Gary demonstrated how to play in a small standing wave....

...and the rest of us gave it a go, some more successfully than others.

Of course, the most successful of us was the sea lion.

He spent the morning riding the current over and over again like an amusement park ride, showing us stupid humans how it's really done.

Finally, we headed back to the beach for a snack and the theory, avoiding the traffic jam of geese as best we could.


Trip Length: 8.15 km
YTD: 96.51 km
More pictures are here.

The Gray Zone

The Gray Zone. And no, we don't mean some sort of X-Files spin-off where Mulder finally finds out what happened to his long-lost sister while he investigates a conspiracy involving secret government organizations and an extraterrestrial invasion. Instead, we mean the gray zone in a kayak, the space between being upside right, and rightside down.
Louise and I headed to the pool for The Gray Zone course put on by the fine folks at Ocean River Sports.


During the course we brushed up on our edging, and our low and high braces, and our sculling (that's sculling, not Scully). Here, Louise practices her braces while the instructor stands behind her trying to flip her.


Then we tried the balance brace (that's when you and your kayak lie on the side and float, also called a static brace in some circles) and sculling for support, which is when you scull to support yourself in the balance brace position. This will take further practice as accomplishing this move requires you to turn body into a pretzel, and my body is more like a cupcake. Mmmmm, cupcake. Sorry, where were we?
We also practiced our sculling brace, and used it in a simulated situation when you may need to rescue someone by carrying them on the back of your kayak. I always thought that when someone was climbing onto your kayak, the proper procedure was to either whack them on the head with your paddle while laughing maniacally, or to attempt to bargain with them: "Throw me the idol, I'll throw you the tow rope! No time to argue!"
But it turns out that by using the sculling brace you can support your kayak while the rescuee scrambles onto to and off of the stern of your kayak, a technique known as the seal carry. Here's Louise trying to carry a fellow student.

We had a great time, but the thing we learned the most is that we need to practice more!

Current Affairs

You might expect that if we had two weeks off work during the beginning of summer that we might get a lot of kayaking in. Sometimes things just don't work out the way you would expect. We had out of town family visiting, plus we adopted two new kittens (and they are a more than a handful). Add to that a few days of record-breaking heat which rendered me into an immobile puddle. So it wasn't until the last day of our vacation this past Sunday that Louise and I were able to drag our kayaks out of the basement and hit the water, taking another kayaking course through the fine folks at Ocean River, this time on navigating currents.

We were joined by six other students and two instructors, Gary and Gary. Although it was a clear sunny day, the forecast was calling for strong winds, with a gale warning up for Juan de Fuca Strait, our destination.
Still it was hot enough that there was much complaining as we slipped into our neoprene and headed out. Helmets were the order of the day, not only to protect our heads should we go over in shallow water, but to protect our heads from errant golf balls as we paddled alongside a golf course on the way to Gonzales Point.


Down near Gonzales Point, it was obvious that a strong wind was coming up. There was no more complaining about how warm we were in our neoprene. Gary and Gary left us in a small protected cove to scout ahead, telling us they'd be back in five to ten minutes. From the cove we could see the waves out in the channel getting whipped up, and we knew that it would be worse around the point and out in Enterprise Channel. After they'd been gone 20 minutes, the general consensus amongst the students was that they were going to call the course off, so we were all a bit surprised when they reported back that we were going to proceed with the lesson. They said that conditions were right on the cusp of what they felt comfortable in exposing us to, but felt that we could handle it. Also, because the wind was blowing from the southwest, roughly the same direction as the current, if any of us got blown away, we would be blown back around Gonzales Point towards where we'd come from and into relative shelter.


So we headed out and around the point and into some swells and a strong wind. We put in for a brief respite at another beach...

...while Gary and Gary surveyed the waters and got weather updates. We clambered up a rock to see what we were getting ourselves into.


Finally we began the lesson, which turned out to be not entirely successful due to the strong wind and currents. Keeping track of eight student kayakers under these conditions must be the equivalent of herding cats. And with the wind, it was sometimes difficult to hear instructions.


But we plugged away at it, even though most of the students had moments when we felt way out of our comfort zone. Near the end of the lesson, we even did a little surfing out in the channel.

Before everyone had a chance to surf, the wind picked up really hard. We turned and headed towards shore to regroup to return to our launch point. It was clear that some of us were struggling in the conditions, but a few minutes of paddling got us around the point and into calmer waters.
While the lesson might have left something to be desired because of the conditions, the experience of being out in it was terrific. This was easily some of the worse stuff Louise and I have ever been out in, and the confidence and experience gained is immeasurable. (Gary and Gary also realized that the lesson was less than ideal because of the conditions and will provide an opportunity for everyone to retake the course. And we met some prospective future paddling partners, too.)



Trip Length: 8.68 km
YTD: 111.05 km
More pictures are here.

Paddle Stroke Course

I have no way of checking this for sure (actually, I do have a way -- it's called the Internet. Maybe you've heard of it? The awful truth is that I'm too lazy to check), but it seems like this is the first day in three months when the high temperature for the day has been above normal. Gorgeous and sunny for a change.
And so on this sunny day, Louise and I made our way to Cadboro Bay for a course called Maneuverability and Agility, put on by the fine folks from Ocean River Sports.


It was a small class; the students were just myself, Louise and a young lady named Alex. She was paddling this beautiful skin-on-frame boat that she had just finished building a few days ago.

What a sweet looking boat. Out on the water, she quickly discovered that her boat could, as Bernie would say, turn on a dime and give seven cents change.
There was also an instructor -- that goes without saying -- but also an instructor-in-training, so basically we had two instructors for three students which means we all got a lot of attention.

We weren't the only paddlers in the water -- an outrigger race was taking place...

...and there was a slight breeze, so some sailboaters headed out as well.


The course involved tuning up our sweeps, edging and low brace turns, and moving onto high brace turns, stern draws, bow rudders, and then putting them altogether. I've never had my boat as far on edge as I had it today. I mean apart from when I've tipped over.
Speaking of tipping over, we were encouraged by the instructors to really let it all hang out when we were edging. Push it to the edge, as it were. And Louise did...

...and over she went. We were in shallow water, so not really a rescue issue (although I do recall shouting "Don't save her yet -- I need to get a picture!" at some point).
But after a moment to regroup, she was back in her boat and back at it.

We had a great time and learned lots. One of the things the instructor said as we practiced our strokes was not to think of the paddle moving around the kayak, but the kayak moving around the paddle. That was a very inspiring (and inspired) visualization that really helped me. That's why he's the teacher and I'm just the student!



The red track is the morning session, the green the afternoon session. Note how far the tide came in during the day. It was an exceptionally low tide when we started in the morning.
Trip Length: 4.75 km
YTD: 92.83 km
More pictures are here.

Rolling Over Is Easy. Rolling Back Up Takes A Little More Effort.

So the last time I took a rolling lesson, the instructor kept reminding us to be careful in our technique lest we dislocate our shoulders. Less than 24 hours later, I did all that and more to my left shoulder after taking a tumble on my bike.
Broke the arm in three places, broke a bone in the shoulder, assorted muscle and tendon damage, and, oh yes, dislocated the shoulder as well. Four hours of surgery.
To answer your question, it did hurt as bad as sounds.
But that was some time ago now, and I really should learn to roll one of these days.
And yesterday was that day, as I headed down to Crystal Pool for a rolling lesson from the fine folks at Ocean River Sports.


Louise was manning the camera as my three classmates and I hit the water. Unfortunately we'd all forgotten to bring kayaks. So instead we practiced some paddle fu.


Well, no, I'm kidding we did bring kayaks. Our instructor began by demonstrating a couple of rolls, then we practiced some paddle strokes and grips that we would need for the roll. Then we finally entered our kayaks and practiced our hip flicks on the side of the pool.


The roll we were being taught was the Pawlata Roll also known as the Extended Roll, and I found this to be an interesting choice. There certainly doesn't seem to be any consistency in terms of what roll a newbie roller should learn first. The first rolling DVD I watched taught the sweep roll, the aforementioned lesson I previously took taught the C and C. (And now I can quite confidently say that I can do them all equally badly. Which is to say, hardly at all.)
Being upside can makes things very confusing. Here I confirm with the instructor which way is up.


This attempt didn't go so well...

...but this one got me out of the water. (Although the pictured roll attempt was not one of my best efforts, it was one of the best pictures. And yes, I noticed a lot of flex in that blade when I saw the picture, and that certainly isn't what should be happening.)

After numerous attempts, I'd say that I only landed a couple of rolls, and I know I didn't score any style points. But I did gain some experience with another type of roll, and I certainly got a sense of the technique involved. I was certainly able to tell during the course of a roll attempt when it was going well, and when it was going badly, and I was surprised how early on in an attempt that that distinction could be made. Clearly, it is a precise maneuver and that, as opposed to brute strength, is what will get you and your kayak upside right when you've both gone upside wrong. More practice is needed. Thetis Lake, anyone?

Back to the Lake

A beautiful Sunday morning on Thetis Lake.


We have returned after only a couple of weeks for another practice session on the lake. Today, it's Louise, Paula, Khaled and myself. After a little paddle around the lake, it's self rescue practise time. Paula is going to figure out how to get back into the Advanced Elements Expedition she's been testing, while Khaled will try to figure if it's even possible for him to get back into his Pelican play boat.


First, we do a little exploring in around the shore.


We found one eagle, but he was a little shy and pretended to ignore us.


There was something living under the lily pads. As we paddled through, tiny splashes would erupt ahead of us. We never determined what was causing the splashes. Frogs were our best guess, but it was just a guess.
A couple of times, I also some small black shapes running along the shoreline. My impression as I briefly caught sight of them was that they were cat-sized, but they clearly didn't move like cats. Minks? River otters? Who knows. Whatever they were, "stealth" was their middle name.


We found another eagle, and after giving us the once over...

...he was very willing to pose.


Then came play time. Paula hit the water first trying to get into her Expedition.

With roughly the same amount of exertion and swearing as when she gave birth to twins, she finally got in. But she quickly discovered that the normal route of a cowboy/scramble entry doesn't really work on the Expedition because there's hardly anything to grab onto on the back deck. So she had to scramble onto the front deck, which means that she is facing the stern, and now has an extra turn she has to deal with before she can get back inside the cockpit. Not impossible, but not exactly ideal.


Then it was Khaled's turn to try a self-rescue in his Pelican play boat...

...and it promptly sank. We very quickly discovered that almost any amount of water in the Pelican would make it totally unstable. Khaled could get on top of it, but he could never get in it before it tipped over or sank. Paula tried an assisted rescue from her kayak and that actually worked really well.


Not to feel left out, I gave my paddle float entry a work out...

...which of course led to the inevitable bilge pump fight.


But perhaps the most important lesson I learned was this: if you're going to mount a camera on your kayak's back deck that's set to take a picture once a minute, make sure you know when it's about to take its next picture before you climb out of your kayak.

The End!


Trip length: 5.13 km
YTD: 251.02 km
My pictures are here.
The Google Earth kmz is here.