How to Roll a Kayak

Lyra is here to show you exactly how to move your body when rolling a kayak. She says you don't need any books or videos or professional instruction. Hell, she doesn't even need a kayak. You just have to give a mighty flip of your hips to get your body going over, let the rest of your body follow, and only at the last moment lift up your head.

Boats, and boats, and boats

I was certified to lead trips for my local sea kayaking club last year after a lot of classes, on the water training, and a "scenarios" test. Then the club also did some risk assessment of this whole trip leader training system with outside risk management consultants. Now there is an extra bit of testing we must go through to upgrade to the new recommended system. It's a quite a lot to go through and it's all to volunteer to lead others who can still sue you, and the whole process already involves a decent amount of paperwork. But what's a club to do?

So don't get me wrong, I still lead people and believe in the whole Pass it Forward skills training of this club. And hey, it's a lot of free training I got. Meanwhile, one of the trip leader coordinators randomly is giving pop quiz questions to trip leaders who need to upgrade.I'm not sure if it is to remind me I need other testing or if these little questions are part of the testing!

After I came in to shore with a big group of our lowest level paddlers I had out in Marblehead harbor Saturday to meet up with two other groups for a beachside pot luck... there she was. "Name three of the special hazards kayaks in the NE must look out for?" "That's easy," I said "Boats, rocks, boats, fast changing weather, boats, cold water, and boats."

I sent her an email that night with the following picture of the poor fellow I nearly lost on Saturday (heads up!) with the subject header "boats, boats, and boats!"


THUNK!