May 13, 2000

Success All Around

Ft. Belvoir

Practice, what else is there? I'm beginning to wonder. I've got five more weekends before I take my BCU training, and like a student cramming for a test the next day, I'm trying to get in as much prep work as possible.

Katie's goal was to get wet. Joan's to try rolling the Looksha to see if it was easier than the Gulfstream. Like always I had many - perfecting skills, helping Katie as she needed, giving Joan a hand when she asked.

We started with Katie. Her goal was to play in the water and get wet. This would be easy as we played around with her dipping herself by hanging on to my bow. We managed to talk her into getting out of the boat to practice self and assisted rescues.

Joan helped me with Eskimo bow rescues, and Katie even got to save me a few times.

The day was warm and so was the water. Katie and I were wearing wetsuits. Joan was wearing shorts. Wet suit weather passed by quickly, as the water has climbed to the upper 60s.

At some point we tried to teach Katie to scull and draw. She started to get a bit frustrated at not being able to get her paddle blade angle correct. I pulled in beside her kayak and grabbed the upper portion of her paddle and had her pull it back and forth as I turned the blade. She quickly got the hang of it but really didn't notice how much we were moving until I had her stop and see how far we had moved from shore, and she had been dragging me along with her!

Next she got frustrated about the boat spinning as she tried a sculling draw on her own. I showed that twisting her torso more towards the stern or more towards the bow could cancel or increase the spin. She was happy again and tiring.

Joan and I tried some assisted rescues with her as victim. After several tries we had to resort to a paddle float reentry. The torque on my bad shoulders is just too much for a between the boats rescue, and the rear deck of the Looksha was too high for Joan on the outside.

In all the practice I found several opportunities to try a reentry and roll. But on falling over on my off side once, I tried to set up and roll up....and made it! My first off side roll! I would try several more times, and only made it up once more. They were ugly - real ugly, with some fierce sculling at the end to get me the rest of the way up, but they worked. Now my body knows they can be done, and lots of practice will eventually get it close to my on side.

Joan had great luck too. The Looksha rolled up several times for her. A few times she barely scraped the bottom with her paddle, and a few times she had to wet exit, but she had quite a few success'. She even took my Gulfstream out and rolled it up a few times.

Joan's roll, Katie's sculling draw, and finally getting up on my offside - a productive day. Now I need 5 more just like it...