White Water Canoe Cert Day 2

Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Met at the boathouse and I was busted for already being dressed in my drysuit. . . stay ahead of the game. Apologized to Evan for being a nudge yesterday when I couldn't get things right. He busted me for apologizing and said I'm doing fine for the cert course and to think back to the fall when I had yet to step into a canoe. Yeah, okay.

Heard a couple of presentations before heading out to Orange--at the waste water treatment plant. What?! It had calm water where we could practice eddy and ferry turns. Damn, we weren't expecting that. The initial odor faded as our olfactory senses were numbed. Aaron was asked to be the throw bag volunteer and he good-naturedly made a splash into the relatively clear water. Evan told us to grin (like baleen) 'cause we might pick up a piece of corn in the water.  Eeeww  Thankfully, Evan and Beth volunteered to be the capsized victims for the bump & tow rescue drills.

We ate an early lunch, had a few more presentations including my 5 minute "Common Paddling Injuries" that went okay but would have been better had I remembered to mention that a way to avoid injuries is to keep your form in the "paddlers box." Anna also showed us how to toss throw bags for rescues. Then we launched. Aaron and I paddled together but I made a miserable stern paddler. Couldn't do ferry crossing into the current. We kept getting swept away despite my sweeps that weren't holding us. Then we went up to the bridge area to do peel outs and eddy turns and I still wasn't getting the stern right. After a while Evan asked if he could paddle with Aaron a while who had asked early on for some one-on-one instruction since he's mainly been paddling a solo. Beth had me switch out with Erin to paddle bow with Kristi. I had to learn the bow turning stroke, the duffek, again and was struggling with that until Beth stopped me and did some hands-on teaching of her own. Helped a lot and I felt like I was starting to get it again. Then we switched positions and I had the same trouble with the stern. At one point, we tried for probably 10 minutes to paddle upstream to the bridge but I kept switching from a hard forward to re-adjust direction which made us then lose ground. I was exhausted and pulled a muscle in my back. Kristi was doing her best not to get frustrated and hang-in with me. Evan finally came down and had us switch up so we could get up stream. I powered and Kristi steered. 

Then we split into 2 groups and Kristi and I went with Evan to practice teaching how to ferry. We all took turns but there wasn't enough time to switch and practice teaching the S turns. We moved into the bump and tow scenarios and then it was time to head out.

Overall, felt better today than yesterday but still have a lot to learn to be certified. Tomorrow we watch the video that Evan shot. Joy.