Day two of the Level 2 kayaking course was a lot tougher than yesterday, mainly because of the boat. I actually feel a bit glum now, after finishing the course. For two reasons: One is just the toughness of the day, the other is that I now realise that solo kayaking will actually be pretty limited due to safety factors.
A Tough Day
The boat I used today was a Valley Avocet. It is a much slimmer, lower volume boat than my own, and I was much closer to the water in it. In comparison to my boat, it was much less stable, and I had to do a lot of work with my hips and legs. My main difficulties were:
Stability
I felt much less secure (laterally) and capsized once because of this. Many of the other issues I had were significantly influenced by this. I constantly needed to correct my vertical position with my hips and each time it was accompanied by a fraction of a second of panic that I was going to capsize. That built up a sense of frustration, hassle and urgency and together this all became exhausting.
Tracking
I found the boat drifting to port a lot and didn’t find a satisfactory solution for this over the course of the day. This got very frustrating at times. I was slower than most of the others in the group, and going off course was undoubtedly part of it.
Effort
I got pretty tired from all the effort of correcting my “roll” angle in the water and keeping my boat on course. By the end of the day my arms were fine, but my core was starting to feel it and my hips, especially at my inner thigh, were sore from the stabilisation and turning.
Discomfort
My lower back got pretty sore after about half an hour. Throughout the day my knees started to get sore as well – mainly from remaining in the same position for so long but also from the general effort involved.
The back pain eventually became the worst aspect of the day. Being “trapped” in the boat when all I wanted to do was get up and walk around was quite demoralising, especially on the return voyage, when we hit a large body of tide-racing water that threw us a around quite a bit.
Demoralised
At that point I started to feel very “hassled” and pessimistic about making it back without capsizing. This really felt like the opposite of yesterday, where I had a big grin on my face out in the heavier seas. Today I felt a bit down about the fact that I wasn’t doing well in the boat the instructors thought would suit me best. This was compounded with the fact that I had been slower than most of the others on the outward voyage. All in all, I felt a bit of a failure.
A Few Things to Note
It is not surprising that it was tougher to go out in choppy seas in a more sensitive boat.
I specifically chose my own boat because of the comfort element. I would have chosen a nippier boat that was as comfortable if I’d found one, but that aspect of the boat was of greater value to me. If my back hadn’t become sore, the challenge of the boat would not have been nearly as big a deal – maybe not at all, if I had just had the headspace to work on it without the constant distraction of the pain.
Speed and tracking come from experience and practice, as well as from a good match between paddler and boat. I will get faster and better the more I do. I will also become more capable of handling a sensitive boat in the process, so there may well come a day when I move on from the Zoar.
Both of the instructors today offered advice or instructions on handling the tougher conditions that helped both physically and mentally. When I was told to relax and lengthen my stroke in the big tide-race, it helped immediately to dispel the feeling of hassle and pessimism. I was also told that sea kayaks have a tendency to turn into the wind and that there are various paddling techniques for countering it. Again, it’s a matter of practice and experience to get those techniques down.
Solo Kayaking
The other part of today’s course that is getting me down is the confirmation that there really is no guaranteed way of getting back into a kayak from the water without assistance. This really changes what is possible as a solo kayaker unless you are prepared to take pretty extreme risks.
Admittedly, if you have mastered the solo capsize-recovery-technique using the paddle, you significantly reduce the likelihood of finding yourself out of your kayak in the water. And realistically there is not much chance that, even if I were skilled enough to use that technique, I would be undertaking trips in conditions that were so extreme that they would be likely to knock me out of the boat.
Update, 15/07/19 – Not sure why, but none of the instructors mentioned the paddle-float technique for solo self-rescue. If I meet them again I will ask, but in any case, there is a well-established technique using a paddle-float to create a support between one end of the paddle floating in the water and the other held across the cockpit combing. You can then get one foot onto the floating end and use it to push yourself back onto the kayak and then to stabilise it as you maneuver yourself back into the cockpit. I’ll definitely be practising this as it would be a good skill to have whether solo or in a group.
So between mastering the “dry” recovery and considering the reality of my plans – rather than some theoretically unlimited version – there is still plenty I can do. But my enthusiasm is a bit dampened at the moment. It feels like I’ll have to be way more cautious than I expected – even my plan to do Dalkey Island alone seems in doubt unless the conditions are perfect (though that is mostly because of my intention to circumnavigate it. Just heading out from Bullock Harbour and staying in the strait between the island and the mainland would probably still be fine).