November 26, 1999

Skills Practice

Trip #66

0 miles

I was only out for a few hours today, but I feel as tired as if on an all day expedition. My skills have been stagnating and I needed to focus on just skill building and put the mile counter away for a while. So after putting some new fan belts on my truck, I headed off for Leeslyvania State Park. There was a chance of afternoon small craft advisory which should kick up some excitement. The waves wouldn't get large, maybe a foot and a half at its peak.

Hopefully this would be enough to toss in some instability to my practice without becoming dangerous. I would be out there alone today, but staying one hundred yards or so offshore. After carrying the kayak and "stuff" down to the water, I made one last trip to the truck to put on my dry suit.

Rather than recount things the way I normally do in my trip reports, I think I'll arrange this one in a "lessons learned" format. Here goes:

1) When walking the boat out past the six - twelve inch waves that were breaking on shore, NEVER allow your fingers to wrap around the coaming lip and the outer portion of the kayak (the part of the lip the sprayskirt wraps around). I've got a nice purple bruise building between the base of one fingernail and the first knuckle from where my fingers got locked into that area just as a wave tried to pick up me and the kayak.

2) Even with my neoprene hood on and my dry suit, taking that first dunking is a big step. But once I've gone under and come back up, subsequent dunkings are not nearly as dreaded.

3) Big lesson for the day: I was too chicken to try the balanced brace without a spotter. The hand/arm/paddle positioning seemed too awkward to try alone. Greg Stamer had sent me a link to a page by Brian Day that showed the different types of Greenland bracing. On this page was also a sculling brace and the statement "If you do it right, your boat will remain on its side while you are sculling. If you do it wrong, the boat will flop upside-down, driving your body toward the bottom and spoiling the brace. "

http://www.paddlers.com/references/refgreenland.htm

I found this interesting since I always tried sculling where my body was arched like a 'J' away from the water. As I continued to lower myself towards the water I would reach the point of no return and the boat would drive me under. Today I tried to drive my upper body into the water first, while trying to keep my kayak upright. I'll be danged if that didn't work. I soon found myself floating in the water face up with an extended paddle sculling to keep me at the surface. Of course, this worked only on the side that I have an on-side roll. I really need to work on the offside roll...

This also seemed to work in the 1 to 1.5 foot waves as the boat and I just slid over them while on my side. With an extended paddle my sculling was slower. With hands in normal paddling position the sculling motion was much more rapid. As the day progressed it took less and less effort to keep me on the surface, but it was still tiring and I could only manage it for a minute or two.

I found I could right myself either with a hip snap, or allow the boat to finish going over and set up for a roll.

4) I spent some time with bracing in an upright position. I find it difficult to do a low brace with a Greenland paddle. A high brace works better, but I had to train myself to open the hand on the side away from the brace to let the paddle pivot to where the blade was flat on the water. I could then turn the brace into a scull. I seemed to be able to do this on both sides fairly well, but a lot more practice is needed to make this an automatic reaction.

5) My second, third, and fourth wave surfing lessons came today. Man what fun! I got into several sets of big waves as I paddled hard to get up to speed. Before I knew it I was racing down the face of a wave, faster than the wave itself. Each time my bow would catch up and literally submerge into the back side of the wave in front of me. It felt as if the bow was being sucked under and after the front hatch would disappear under the wave the kayak would slow down and pop back to the surface. Cool. Once up to speed I did feel unstable as I tried to lean one way and then another to try and stay perpendicular to the wave. I should have capsized at this point on purpose just to try and work through this nervousness.

6) My glasses fogged immediately each time I rolled up out of the water. The wind was warm and thick with moisture and the difference in temperature between the Potomac and air was drastic. I stopped on the way home back at Auto Zone where I picked up my fan belts and bought some RainX anti-fog stuff (only $2 for a big bottle). You're not supposed to use it on plastic, but it didn't seem to hurt my Military issue BC sunglasses. I'll follow up and post how well it works.

7) I kept my nose clips on the entire time I was practicing today. It adds a lot to my sense of security knowing I won't have to deal with the water in my sinuses. On the other hand, I found I sometimes got winded, and the tight fit of my dry suit neck would invoke a gag reflex. The suit doesn't feel all that tight in the neck, but just the thought that something is pressing against it all the time is something I will have to get accustomed to. When this happened I found that removing the nose clips helped my sanity (and breathing) return to normal.

Not sure what is in store for tomorrow. There is a paddle up in the Baltimore Harbor, but a bit late in the morning for this early bird. I may run up there early and paddle it anyway. I'd like to practice some more but my shoulder is feeling the strain of today. Need to stay away from the deer hunters tomorrow though...