June 27, 2005

Learning to Stand

As I rounded High Point I caught a set of boat wakes and rode them across the shallows of the point for some distance. That was fun, and I was hot so I headed into deeper water to roll and cool off. Not really wanting to paddle for distance today I decided to play. For several hours I sat on the south end of the point waiting for wakes large enough to surf.

Early on it seemed the larger draft boats were coming through giving lots of opportunity to catch a free ride. But in short order it seemed the good wakes became less and less frequent so that I was waiting a good 10-15 minutes between sets near the end.

I played with the skeg a bit. The explorer is just a dream in a following sea, but I wish I had the wire skeg instead of the rope skeg for it's ease to adjust to positions other than all the way up or all the way down.

I saw John appear in the distance, and over my shoulder I saw about 10 boats go by all at once. I jumped on the waves about halfway through the sets and rode two waves for several hundred feet before paddling up to John to chat for a few minutes.

As John paddled away I caught a few more waves then headed back to Mason Neck. I spent some time working on my roll and several folks on shore stopped to watch. As they sat on the beach I tried several new things, failing on all of them. I decided to try and stand up in my kayak.

I had done this in my Sirocco in the pool several times, but never in the Explorer. I tried to stand and immediately capsized. I'm sure this was amusing to the group on shore, but I re-entered and rolled back up. This time I threw my legs out of the cockpit and slid my butt up on the rear deck. I sculled for support as I brought my legs back in to the cockpit and promptly capsized again.

I repeated these funny antics probably six or seven times. After capsizing for the last time I left the kayak upside down and hooked a foot through the painter. I swam using my paddle toward shore, trailing my kayak behind me until I reached knee deep water.

I was disappointed I never managed to stand. I have a lot to master to accomplish this task. But the time in the water, the rolling, and catching some good rides across the point left me feeling refreshed for the rest of the day.