Assessment assessment

Welp, like I said before, I failed my 3 star but I thought I'd talk about the experience a bit 'cause it was, after all, pretty cool.

By way of intro the 3 star is a BCU assessment for intermediate skills. That makes sense as there are 5 stars and 3 is in the middle. Brits are nothing if not mathematically coherent I guess. The specifics are in the 3 star syllabus which you can read here (warning: PDF).  The assessors were Leon and Shawn of Body Boat Blade and Bill Lozano of Atlantic Kayak Tours in New York. Bill flown by L&S to work on the assessment and other things, but more on that in other posts.

The venue for the assessment was Obstruction Pass on Orcas Island. I've been to Obstruction Pass a few times and it is an excellent place to play around. It has currents that are easy to handle, a nice eddy line to play on and generally low consequences for errors. The weather for the day was not as nice. The prediction was 10-20kts in the AM, increasing to 15-25kts in the afternoon, with rain.

For myself I was flat out tired and it showed. This was day 6 of 6 of paddling stuff and it had taken it's toll. I will strive to not do assessments on the last day of a set of instruction days. There were some kids (twenty X year olds) in the class who were also on day 6 but they seemed in good spirits with adequate energy. Fuckers.

So, how was the assessment? Pretty good overall. We were certainly on the highest end of the environmental conditions for a 3 star assessment. I do wonder if I'll feel like I cheated if I do this again (probably) and the conditions are rather more benign. There were several moments where the process felt sort of boot campy to me (yes, I was in boot camp once).

After lunch, still on the beach, it was announced we were going to have a friendly race, which was not something I wanted to hear. I was tired. The twenty-Xers were semi-chomping at the bit, trading small jokes and like that. Fuckers. Anyhow, Shawna tells us the Leon has a gash in his head, Bill has a hole in his boat, Allen (another guy/story) was cold, and she needed to make contact with the outside world. Run to your boat and bring back what you have to solve those problems. As fast as you can! And off goes everyone else. I trudged over got my crap and brought it back. Last.

Why was that a race? I'm well (well) past the age where I'm going to move quickly at the behest of anyone without understanding pretty much exactly why I should. Not that I mind moving quickly, but arbitrary and unnecessary are some of the fastest ways for me to get to derision and dismissal.

Similarly, on the water, there were frequent (endless?) admonished to keep up with the leader. Calls to stay together, don't get strung out. Frequently. A lot. Often. Now I get this one at some level. You can't have communication if you're not close enough to hear what's said, this level of paddling is about being a competent group member, etc. Makes sense. But I swear a little more of that and there'd have been boats ablaze. I just wasn't in the mood.

Outside of that it was a pretty good experience. Most importantly for me it was a complete assessment. That is, unlike the last time I did this, it didn't get stopped at lunch. We went all day, covered all of the syllabus and I got feedback on all of it. So I know what I need to work on, what I'm up to par on, and that stuff. You know, assessed.

And I'd be remiss if I did not mention Bill Lozano as a truly chill and pragmatic guy on the water. 2 examples and then I'm done.

We're doing eskimo rescues. It was a little bouncy and I'm upside down, sweeping hands back and forth, back and forth, as you do. Back and forth, back and forth...so it's been a while. Not long, just longer than normal. Finally I feel a boat hull and start grabbing for the bow. Turns out the rescuer sort of missed and I grab not a bow but a chunk of coaming and spray deck. But there's no way I'm letting go so I sort of drag myself up, he's doing a semi hand-of-divine-being-of-your-choice thing and I come up. The rescuer guy sort of starts explaining what went wrong to Bill who just says something like, They're not gonna just take a bow, they'll grab anything they can. As long as they get up. And next. Just like no big deal.

We're on the beach. I think it was after lunch. Leon is saying something about doing something that was gonna be a real pain in the ass for me (the twenty-Xers seemed unconcerned of course. Fuckers). Head to some beach or something that involved paddling into some strong ass winds and getting admonished (read:yelled at) to keep together forcing me to have to set fire to boats (see above). But I'm tired and cold, and I'm totally not in the mood to set boats on fire, despite the prospect of warmth and entertainment. But Bill, bless him, says quietly "I don't think we need to do that", and voila!, we didn't. Thanks Bill.