For the longest while I've been looking for a surf (kayak) coach in my area. Surprisingly this turns out to be difficult despite the fact that there are several world champions nearby. I suppose spending time practicing and not teaching has something to do with why they're champions though.
So I happened upon a mail from Jeff Laxier of Liquid Fusion Kayak that was sent to one of the local paddling clubs announcing a BCU 3* training and assessment coming up. I'm (probably) off of the BCU path but trainings are always fun. So I hit up their website and see that in addition to the 3* training Jeff is also doing a surf (kayak) class. LFK is in Fort Bragg which is about four hours away. So not exactly in my neighborhood but, hell, I drive up to the San Juans several times a year and that's a fourteen hour slog. Four hours would be a cake walk. I'd met Jeff once or twice before but we didn't really speak. I mean he seemed like a nice enough fellow but I was looking for a coach and, for me, that has requirements well beyond just "nice enough fellow".
Getting in touch was a little touch and go. I sent a mail and it took a day or so to hear back. I learned that the 3* training and assessment had been cancelled due to lack of participation (symptomatic, says I, of the paddling culture in my area. But that's another topic). I sent another mail and waited another day or so. I was feeling a little neglected. The Saturday before the surf class was supposed to happen I paddled down to Capitola and called LFK from the beach and got a chance to talk to Jeff. Long story short the surf class was undersubscribed as well but we could do a private lesson. Ok let's do that. While I was willing to drive four hours (eight total) I wanted to spend more than three hours or so on the water, so a surf class on a Monday and a sea boat lesson on Tuesday it would be. Basically if my time on the water is going to be less than the time of a one way drive to the put in I (usually) don't do the trip or whatever it is.
I've never been to Fort Bragg. I'd been to Mendocino before which is a real tourist type place a little ways south of Fort Brag (30 minutes perhaps? I dunno. Not far.) I thought about staying in Mendo. It's a really nice place with good restaurants, nice places to stay and truly iconic California coast scenery. I took a look though at the lodging options in Fort Bragg and was very(!) surprised to learn how cheap things were. At least relative to Mendo. I ended up making reservations at a place called Shoreline Cottages for two nights in the Sun Suite. Nice place.
I arrived in Fort Bragg about 2:45 on a Sunday. My room wasn't quite ready so I decided to take a drive up Highway 1 to see what I could see. I randomly made a left hand turn, towards the ocean, and happened upon a parking area on the side of the road that contained several cars and an obvious path towards the water. I parked and in about 5 minutes I was on a cliff about 15 feet above 2 beaches readily accessible by well cut trails. I wouldn't want to carry, say, my sea boat down the trails by myself but would easily do it with someone else and, if I had really, really had to, by myself. This was my first exposure to how easy it was to get to the water in Fort Bragg. I stopped under the bridge that goes over the Noyo River. Easy access. A little further south, more or less across from the hotel, easy access.
It wasn't clear to me exactly where this surf class was going to be the next day. I sent a mail over to Jeff and he replied that he was going to check conditions later in the day and would let me know where the class would take place. This was a very good sign. Adapting to conditions is sort of a minimal requirement for a class and coach. That evening Jeff called and left a message telling me the course was going to be at place called Caspar Beach. Meeting time was 10:00AM. This, by the way, is a time I find entirely civilized for a class. Oh yah, another student was coming and the private lesson was now just a regular class which was great since it ended up saving me some money.
I arrived at Caspar Beach about 9:40 the next morning. Low and behold it was another easy access site. Incredibly easy actually. The waves were perhaps 2 feet or so which I thought to be a good size for a class like this. Jeff arrived at around 10 as did Sean (sp?) the other student. Jeff brought me a Kaos sit on top surf boat. I'd been in this kind of boat once before and I'd been happy at not having to worry about dealing with spray decks and like that.
Jeff spent quite a few minutes discussing surf stuff. I've been in the surf before so I don't think there was much that was new to me, but I really (really) appreciated how he talked about surf etiquette. Several times he used the words "ambassador to the sport" as in be a good one for surf kayaking. My regular coaches say this quite often and it suggested to me that Jeff was trying to convey a broader view of surfing than just catching waves. I like this.
I won't bore you much with the specifics of the class. Jeff was, I thought, a solid and conscientious coach. It's the little things you know. He would start talking to me and realize he was in the sun and move. Safety. Safety. Safety. Always concerned about safe. See that log there on the beach? What's going to happen to it when the tide comes up? Keep an eye out. Aware. Be aware. Watch the waves. No, keep watching. A little longer. Just well paced absorbable presentation. And not too much verbiage.
The class ended for me when I got slammed pretty hard. I was on a foam pile, bracing into another foam pile and the one I was riding just sort of disappeared. My shore edge caught, I got whipped and dropped right on the top of my helmet onto smallish rocks and coarse sand. I saw stars and when I got up I had one of those sharp headaches you have the morning after drinking a lot of bad scotch. My shoulder had a nice welt and bruise on it from hitting something or other. It was mostly shore break at this point and my head hurt (without the conciliation of being at all drunk) so I decided to just watch. About 20 minutes later we were done.
The next day I was to spend a couple of hours in my sea boat with Jeff. We met at LFK central which is right on the Noyo River perhaps a mile from the ocean. Nice location with (surprise!) easy access to the water. We put in and headed down to the highway 1 bridge. Jeff had me doing some stuff with my feet that was really interesting. I think it's the first time I've paid exclusiveish attention to my feet. Quite eye opening and I took several things away that I want to play with.
While I was happy with how I connected with Jeff in the surf class I was truly pleased at how well I took on his sea boat instruction. I'm not an expert coach or anything but I have some notion of good practice. Things like being quiet. Speak only when looked at. Which is to say, some idea of how to get out of the way when I'm learning, and then how to present so I can learn.
So anyway it was, in the end, a great couple of days. Fort Bragg was a pleasant surprise. It's inexpensive, has great access to a beautiful coast and, evidently, good surfing. It's a shortish drive, one that I'd do after work on a Friday, at least every now and again. I might have found a surf coach. While it's hard for me to say, after such a short time, if Jeff will be a good coach for me I'm confident he won't be a bad coach. I'll be going back to Fort Bragg and LFK for sure.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
CLAPing and Towing
(This is long. Sorry I just didn't have time to make it shorter.)
One of the spans of the San Francisco Bay Bridge is being rebuilt because apparently the old span will not likely survive a big earth quake. It's been under construction for a really long time so I decided to lead a club trip out to the bridge so we could inspect the progress being made. And also because the bridge is quite a spectacle. Awesome in fact. But awesome in the dictionary sense of the word, not the current colloquial sense. One of the participants had to be put under tow for about 2 miles or so and, in that process, I made some mistakes and learned a few things. I thought I'd write them down.
Conditions were quite tame. Predicted winds were SW 5kts. Currents were relatively light, 1.33 knots max flood under the bridge itself and those not until 3.5 hours after we launched (assuming the nominal 3 miles per hour rate).It was sunny and the air temperature was predicted to be in the low 70s. Fall on the bay is full of days like this. Just...nice. It was a nice day to be out on the water.
The plan was to circumnavigate Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island in a counter clockwise direction, arrive under the bridge and eww and aww at it for a bit and then head back to our put in. I'd estimated the distance at about 10 miles with a guesstimate time on water of a little over 3 hours. Our route took us across the current and then only if we were quite slower than I'd anticipated.
I'm moderately religious about doing a safety talk before a paddle. Unless I'm alone. Then I don't do a safety talk because that would be strange and I'm strange enough already. Or so I'm told. Anyway sometimes the talk is as simple as "Don't die, stay in shouting distance". Other times I cover signals, closest to a capsize handles it, everyone holds position when a rescue happens, etc. It really depends on who is there, where we are, stuff like that. Environmentals if you will. But always with the safety talk. My preference is to do it on shore for various reasons but on this day that wasn't possible as folks just got on the water. I asked them to stay close by the for the safety talk though.
After we got on the water I covered our route, the estimated distance and time, and asked everyone to stay in shouting distance with the request that if you didn't see anyone in front of you please look behind you to make sure you weren't rabitting away. For myself I had my "don't ask just pack it" kit and part of that is a tow belt.
We crossed fairly directly from our put in to the east side of Treasure Island. As we approached the island there is a channel that larger (than us) pleasure craft use. It was a slow day with not much traffic but I maintain that practicing good practice is good practice so I gathered everyone up in a bunch, explained that this was a channel (just in case) and told them I wanted to cross it together. This was accomplished somewhat but by the time we got across the group had dispersed fairly well in both dimensions. This was a sign to which I should have paid better attention.
The northeast tip of TI has a current on it that can sometimes be insurmountable. Today was not that day but I'd estimate there was a current of about half a knot or so. The water was soft and swirly as it gets around sticky-outty bits. I headed around first, but stopped in the soft water so as to not loose sight of anyone. I did not ask anyone to stop and wait once they got around. Once the last person got around I just paddled along myself and soon found myself at the front of the group. As we approached the north west tip of the island I stopped again to watch for everyone to get around. This time when I looked back though one of the members was quite a ways back. I don't recall the exact distance but almost certainly more than a hundred yards. That's too far, at least for me, since I had no way of communicating with this guy and that's just a really bad thing. Says I.
I held the group up to wait for the slow fellow. Another of the group members had stayed fairly close to him and he relayed to me that he'd asked slow fellow if he was nervous in the conditions or if he was tired, or what. SF said he was a little tired. Once he caught up we continued down the west side. I talked with SF briefly and he also told me he was just tired. I was right next to him at this point and watched him carefully. I deduced he was in fact quite uncomfortable with the conditions. His focus point was on his bow and close to the water around him, he was fetalizing and his form was stiff. If he was tired it was a decent bet that was a significant factor in his fatigue. We were about half way into the paddle. I have quite an appreciation with being nervous in conditions so I informed him that once we got around the southern tip of the island things got flat calm. Knowing that the end is in sight, so to speak, has always made things a little easier for me.
We stopped for lunch on a small beach that was absolutely not on Yerba Buena Island because that would be trespassing on Coast Guard property and that would be wrong. So we didn't land on a rocky little beach under the bay bridge were we couldn't be seen from above. And we didn't have a snack or lunch on a beach like that. I didn't have lunch with me. I'd really been expecting a short 3.5 hour paddle at most and so had brought only some snacks. However the impact of SF was that we were about half way into our paddle and we'd been out for 2.5 hours. Beyond insufficient food of course was the issue of currents. I'd assumed(!) we'd not have to worry about currents much at all since we'd be back on shore by max and out of the main flow well before the 90% hour kicked in.
I sat down with SF while were weren't on a beach on YB and again told him conditions would be flat calm after we got around that point right there (I pointed to it). I asked if he was ok, and was he tired and so forth. I mentioned that the current was going to be a little bit more than I'd planned and I might put him under tow if he was too slow crossing it. He didn't seem happy about that but didn't reject the idea.
Once back on the water and around the corner SF seemed quite rejuvenated. He stayed within a couple of boat lengths of me as we went under the bridge and when I gathered everyone again for the crossing he was right there. I started the crossing and fairly quickly the group had split into fairly wide spread groups of 2 and 3. Even though it was just a 1 knot current I decided not to stop and collect the group in the middle of it. So I lost sight of people as they went behind barges that are there to hold bridge building supplies. I chewed my lip until they came back into sight. I cursed club paddle politics. I really, really cursed a paddling culture which seems to violently eschew professional training. Sigh.
After a while one of the paddlers (a BBB alum BTW) who had stayed with the main group (i.e. me) mentioned that folks had spread out a bit. She was right of course but I explained I didn't want to stop in the middle of the current and, to myself, I was sort of not in the mood to herd cats. Things would probably work. Probably. I did though take a look behind me at that point and saw, to my great sadness, SF about two hundred yards behind me.
He was tired. He'd paddle two strokes and then put his paddle down. Two strokes, paddle down. Fuck. Just fuck. I paddled back to talk to him and, fuck again, snap a tow on. As I approached I asked, pointlessly, how he was doing and he responded, pointedly, "tired". He asked how far it was and I told him about 1.5 miles. He commented that he could make it. I just didn't feel like explaining that we were in a current being set down and at his pace the 1.5 mile was going to be rather a bit longer. So I just told him I was going to put a tow on for a little while and let him catch his breath.
I started towing and, after about 2 hours (read: 10 minutes or so), received an offer from two folks to assist. One I was forced to turn down as his tow system consisted of 30 feet of line with two carabiners on it. I'm not sure how bad things would have to be for me to attach myself to another craft in that fashion but much worse than they were right then. I did accept the offer for an assist from someone who had a quick release tow system. So it was SF, me in the middle and the helper. Everyone else continued paddling and they were soon far, far ahead. Entirely out of touch.
Thus began the long (long. No longer than that. It was long. Or it seemed long) slog back. The helper guy was no doubt helping but he happened to be using a greenland paddle and I was pretty much constantly over running him. I think this disparity in ability to apply force (greenland versus the fat ass euro blade I paddle with) has some profound implications. One thing that was immediately obvious was that I was glad I was in the middle of the tow. Strictly speaking I should not even have been in the tow. I certainly should not have been in the middle where I was essentially unable to disengage on my own to address other circumstances that might arise. However, in this case, had I been at the front I would have been towing two boats for much of the distance.
Total time for the tow was about 50 minutes or so. I was exhausted when we got back into the flat calm protection of the spot we launched from. Thankfully nothing else happened. My ability to influence a circumstance on the water was severely diminished. If SF, for example, had ended up requiring a rafted two I'm not sure if I could have towed the raft back myself. (Remember the rest of the group was gone, far ahead.)
This was my second time towing for real. The first time I was not the leader, and the tow was short, perhaps 10 minutes. I had huge amounts of support around me (Ben Lawry and Sean Morley). They kept the group close by, etc. and therefore I was only concerned with towing.
This time it was me and I had to be concerned with the group and the towing. Ultimately I failed. SF was returned safe and sound but I pretty much lost control of the group and, as I said, I was at my limit when we got back and that's just not where you want to be if you've some sense of responsibility to the group.
In the end I think I did several things wrong. As soon as I saw SF was not able to keep up I probably should have adjusted the trip to be shorter. My admonition to the group to stay in shouting distance was insufficient. Ideally I would have liked to have said the trip would operate under the principles of CLAP, but few participants would have known what that means. I have another introduction that I'll use in future. When folks started getting far in front during the tow I should have called them back. Not doing so allowed for an unsafe condition to arise. I succumbed to club paddle politics which is to say that I didn't want to rag on folks to do things "correctly". I put that in quotes for obvious reasons but I'll stand firmly by the notion that staying in a group, adjusting trips to accomodate individual paddler requirements and striving to be not exhausted is "correct".
I do wish more folks took the time to learn what CLAP is, why it is, and it's value. I would be very happy if "competent member of a group", when it comes to kayaking, wasn't translated into "I can paddle in those conditions". They are, I believe, very different things.
Finally, ultimately, some might say this whole thing is a little pedantic. Truly the San Francisco Bay is a pretty safe place to paddle, at least in most of it, and so long as you don't get run over. There're tons of people around all the time, there are something like 10 billion outs (more or less), the water isn't that cold, etc. If I hadn't towed SF guy the most likely worst case outcome would have been he'd have gone under the bridge, hit land and called a cab for a 15 minute ride back. So pedantic, maybe. But I see no reason not to think about how to save cab fare.
One of the spans of the San Francisco Bay Bridge is being rebuilt because apparently the old span will not likely survive a big earth quake. It's been under construction for a really long time so I decided to lead a club trip out to the bridge so we could inspect the progress being made. And also because the bridge is quite a spectacle. Awesome in fact. But awesome in the dictionary sense of the word, not the current colloquial sense. One of the participants had to be put under tow for about 2 miles or so and, in that process, I made some mistakes and learned a few things. I thought I'd write them down.
Conditions were quite tame. Predicted winds were SW 5kts. Currents were relatively light, 1.33 knots max flood under the bridge itself and those not until 3.5 hours after we launched (assuming the nominal 3 miles per hour rate).It was sunny and the air temperature was predicted to be in the low 70s. Fall on the bay is full of days like this. Just...nice. It was a nice day to be out on the water.
The plan was to circumnavigate Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island in a counter clockwise direction, arrive under the bridge and eww and aww at it for a bit and then head back to our put in. I'd estimated the distance at about 10 miles with a guesstimate time on water of a little over 3 hours. Our route took us across the current and then only if we were quite slower than I'd anticipated.
I'm moderately religious about doing a safety talk before a paddle. Unless I'm alone. Then I don't do a safety talk because that would be strange and I'm strange enough already. Or so I'm told. Anyway sometimes the talk is as simple as "Don't die, stay in shouting distance". Other times I cover signals, closest to a capsize handles it, everyone holds position when a rescue happens, etc. It really depends on who is there, where we are, stuff like that. Environmentals if you will. But always with the safety talk. My preference is to do it on shore for various reasons but on this day that wasn't possible as folks just got on the water. I asked them to stay close by the for the safety talk though.
After we got on the water I covered our route, the estimated distance and time, and asked everyone to stay in shouting distance with the request that if you didn't see anyone in front of you please look behind you to make sure you weren't rabitting away. For myself I had my "don't ask just pack it" kit and part of that is a tow belt.
We crossed fairly directly from our put in to the east side of Treasure Island. As we approached the island there is a channel that larger (than us) pleasure craft use. It was a slow day with not much traffic but I maintain that practicing good practice is good practice so I gathered everyone up in a bunch, explained that this was a channel (just in case) and told them I wanted to cross it together. This was accomplished somewhat but by the time we got across the group had dispersed fairly well in both dimensions. This was a sign to which I should have paid better attention.
The northeast tip of TI has a current on it that can sometimes be insurmountable. Today was not that day but I'd estimate there was a current of about half a knot or so. The water was soft and swirly as it gets around sticky-outty bits. I headed around first, but stopped in the soft water so as to not loose sight of anyone. I did not ask anyone to stop and wait once they got around. Once the last person got around I just paddled along myself and soon found myself at the front of the group. As we approached the north west tip of the island I stopped again to watch for everyone to get around. This time when I looked back though one of the members was quite a ways back. I don't recall the exact distance but almost certainly more than a hundred yards. That's too far, at least for me, since I had no way of communicating with this guy and that's just a really bad thing. Says I.
I held the group up to wait for the slow fellow. Another of the group members had stayed fairly close to him and he relayed to me that he'd asked slow fellow if he was nervous in the conditions or if he was tired, or what. SF said he was a little tired. Once he caught up we continued down the west side. I talked with SF briefly and he also told me he was just tired. I was right next to him at this point and watched him carefully. I deduced he was in fact quite uncomfortable with the conditions. His focus point was on his bow and close to the water around him, he was fetalizing and his form was stiff. If he was tired it was a decent bet that was a significant factor in his fatigue. We were about half way into the paddle. I have quite an appreciation with being nervous in conditions so I informed him that once we got around the southern tip of the island things got flat calm. Knowing that the end is in sight, so to speak, has always made things a little easier for me.
We stopped for lunch on a small beach that was absolutely not on Yerba Buena Island because that would be trespassing on Coast Guard property and that would be wrong. So we didn't land on a rocky little beach under the bay bridge were we couldn't be seen from above. And we didn't have a snack or lunch on a beach like that. I didn't have lunch with me. I'd really been expecting a short 3.5 hour paddle at most and so had brought only some snacks. However the impact of SF was that we were about half way into our paddle and we'd been out for 2.5 hours. Beyond insufficient food of course was the issue of currents. I'd assumed(!) we'd not have to worry about currents much at all since we'd be back on shore by max and out of the main flow well before the 90% hour kicked in.
I sat down with SF while were weren't on a beach on YB and again told him conditions would be flat calm after we got around that point right there (I pointed to it). I asked if he was ok, and was he tired and so forth. I mentioned that the current was going to be a little bit more than I'd planned and I might put him under tow if he was too slow crossing it. He didn't seem happy about that but didn't reject the idea.
Once back on the water and around the corner SF seemed quite rejuvenated. He stayed within a couple of boat lengths of me as we went under the bridge and when I gathered everyone again for the crossing he was right there. I started the crossing and fairly quickly the group had split into fairly wide spread groups of 2 and 3. Even though it was just a 1 knot current I decided not to stop and collect the group in the middle of it. So I lost sight of people as they went behind barges that are there to hold bridge building supplies. I chewed my lip until they came back into sight. I cursed club paddle politics. I really, really cursed a paddling culture which seems to violently eschew professional training. Sigh.
After a while one of the paddlers (a BBB alum BTW) who had stayed with the main group (i.e. me) mentioned that folks had spread out a bit. She was right of course but I explained I didn't want to stop in the middle of the current and, to myself, I was sort of not in the mood to herd cats. Things would probably work. Probably. I did though take a look behind me at that point and saw, to my great sadness, SF about two hundred yards behind me.
He was tired. He'd paddle two strokes and then put his paddle down. Two strokes, paddle down. Fuck. Just fuck. I paddled back to talk to him and, fuck again, snap a tow on. As I approached I asked, pointlessly, how he was doing and he responded, pointedly, "tired". He asked how far it was and I told him about 1.5 miles. He commented that he could make it. I just didn't feel like explaining that we were in a current being set down and at his pace the 1.5 mile was going to be rather a bit longer. So I just told him I was going to put a tow on for a little while and let him catch his breath.
I started towing and, after about 2 hours (read: 10 minutes or so), received an offer from two folks to assist. One I was forced to turn down as his tow system consisted of 30 feet of line with two carabiners on it. I'm not sure how bad things would have to be for me to attach myself to another craft in that fashion but much worse than they were right then. I did accept the offer for an assist from someone who had a quick release tow system. So it was SF, me in the middle and the helper. Everyone else continued paddling and they were soon far, far ahead. Entirely out of touch.
Thus began the long (long. No longer than that. It was long. Or it seemed long) slog back. The helper guy was no doubt helping but he happened to be using a greenland paddle and I was pretty much constantly over running him. I think this disparity in ability to apply force (greenland versus the fat ass euro blade I paddle with) has some profound implications. One thing that was immediately obvious was that I was glad I was in the middle of the tow. Strictly speaking I should not even have been in the tow. I certainly should not have been in the middle where I was essentially unable to disengage on my own to address other circumstances that might arise. However, in this case, had I been at the front I would have been towing two boats for much of the distance.
Total time for the tow was about 50 minutes or so. I was exhausted when we got back into the flat calm protection of the spot we launched from. Thankfully nothing else happened. My ability to influence a circumstance on the water was severely diminished. If SF, for example, had ended up requiring a rafted two I'm not sure if I could have towed the raft back myself. (Remember the rest of the group was gone, far ahead.)
This was my second time towing for real. The first time I was not the leader, and the tow was short, perhaps 10 minutes. I had huge amounts of support around me (Ben Lawry and Sean Morley). They kept the group close by, etc. and therefore I was only concerned with towing.
This time it was me and I had to be concerned with the group and the towing. Ultimately I failed. SF was returned safe and sound but I pretty much lost control of the group and, as I said, I was at my limit when we got back and that's just not where you want to be if you've some sense of responsibility to the group.
In the end I think I did several things wrong. As soon as I saw SF was not able to keep up I probably should have adjusted the trip to be shorter. My admonition to the group to stay in shouting distance was insufficient. Ideally I would have liked to have said the trip would operate under the principles of CLAP, but few participants would have known what that means. I have another introduction that I'll use in future. When folks started getting far in front during the tow I should have called them back. Not doing so allowed for an unsafe condition to arise. I succumbed to club paddle politics which is to say that I didn't want to rag on folks to do things "correctly". I put that in quotes for obvious reasons but I'll stand firmly by the notion that staying in a group, adjusting trips to accomodate individual paddler requirements and striving to be not exhausted is "correct".
I do wish more folks took the time to learn what CLAP is, why it is, and it's value. I would be very happy if "competent member of a group", when it comes to kayaking, wasn't translated into "I can paddle in those conditions". They are, I believe, very different things.
Finally, ultimately, some might say this whole thing is a little pedantic. Truly the San Francisco Bay is a pretty safe place to paddle, at least in most of it, and so long as you don't get run over. There're tons of people around all the time, there are something like 10 billion outs (more or less), the water isn't that cold, etc. If I hadn't towed SF guy the most likely worst case outcome would have been he'd have gone under the bridge, hit land and called a cab for a 15 minute ride back. So pedantic, maybe. But I see no reason not to think about how to save cab fare.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Rescues should be inevitable
A couple of weekends ago I attended a rescue clinic put on by BASK, one of the local clubs in my area. The last time I tried to get to one of these I was rear ended on the way. After trading info and rest of the rigamarole that goes with getting hit I ended up missing the event so I was happy to have the chance to practice some rescues as well as meet some new people (I don't usually paddle with BASK, but that's a different story.)
The practice took place at Half Moon Bay. The plan for the morning was to be practicing/learning various rescues in the flat conditions of Pillar Point Harbor. After lunch everyone was to do a short portage over to a cove that's protected by a reef. It was a very calm day so the waves were very small and manageable by pretty much everyone. One person though did swim and I happened to be closest so I went over to offer some assistance.
As I pulled up I asked him first if he wanted any help. It was a rescue clinic after all so perhaps he wanted to cowboy back in or something. I don't recall exactly what he said but it wasn't an answer to my question. I asked him again if he wanted help and, again, got an answer that really didn't answer. Something about how the wave surprised him or something. Briefly I was concerned he was genuinely disoriented but decided to ask one more time and, finally, got my answer. Yes, he wanted some help. Whew. I'm entirely able to get someone incapacitated back into their boat, but I've never even thought about how to deal with someone in distress but actively unwilling to assist. Not to say that's where the guy was, but it crossed my mind. Something new to think about.
Anyway I ask the the guy to flip his boat over (because that's how you do a standard T-Rescue dammit) and immediately I start getting lip. He might get water in the boat. His head might go under water. I tell him it'll be fine, just flip the boat over. So he does and I grab it. He swims to the back of his boat for whatever wrong reason and proceeds to start telling me what to do. He's going to push down on the back or something and make sure I have a good hold on the boat and like that. I realized, all of a sudden, this guy has been either incredibly poorly trained or he's never been trained at all. So I started laughing, and I tell him that, this time, I'm going to let him get away with giving orders, but the rescuer is in control of the rescue. He says ok, and then tells me to grab the boat and hold it tight he's going to do a heel hook. I asked him to wait, emptied the boat and then he heel hooks in. While he's getting sorted he tells me to not let go. I'm actually guffawing at this point because it's just funny as hell this guy is out on the ocean. Anyway, he explains that the last time this happened the rescuer didn't hang on and that caused problems and blah, blah, blah. It was hard to hear him. I was laughing.
As the world is made up of little more than a seemingly random series of coincidences (heh) a couple of days later I received the new Sea Kayak Rescues DVD put together by Body Boat Blade. (Full disclosure. Leon and Shawna are friends of mine. I'd like to think though that if I didn't like their movie I wouldn't say anything at all in public. I have no vested interest in the DVD so I'm not shilling here.) Let me digress a bit and talk about the movie.
I've watched it five times already. It is unquestionably different than the other instructional DVDs I have. For one, at about 26 minutes long (not counting some extras) it's quite compact. I have other instructional DVDs that are 3 times that long. (Interestingly the longest one I've watched twice in 4 years.) It's also not a "talking head" movie. That is it's not one of those, "Do this. Then this. Now that. But if that occurs then this." type movies. I'll be honest. The first time I watched the movie I didn't get it. It was shorted than I expected. There was less talking than I expected. A lot less talking. It didn't follow an arc I expected.
I've mentioned this before, at least indirectly, but if you can get those guys to talk about coaching (it's not hard) you sort of quickly realize that, pedagogically, very little that they do is not planned or considered. If you're in a class and they're doing something it's probably for a reason. To this day I will tell anyone that asks one of the best classes I ever took was one in which Leon never got in a boat, and never said more than like 10 words in a row to any of the students. If the movie was odd it likely wasn't due to a lack of consideration.
I'm not sure but I think the movie is important. Not because of the content, which is of course important because it's about rescues. Rather because, perhaps, it might change what people consider an instructional DVD to be. Notice please I said might. I'm not an expert. I am however getting something out of the movie each time I watch it. And it is certainly something to watch. Actively. Attentively. At least I think so.
Anyway, in this movie Leon says something like, if there's one word I'd use to describe our rescue philosophy it would be efficiency. Shawna uses the word simplicity.
After I watched their movie I was reflecting again on my experience with the guy in Half Moon Bay and came to my own one word summary of a rescue philosophy. As far as possible rescues should be inevitable. I wish his experiences had let him think that was true.
The practice took place at Half Moon Bay. The plan for the morning was to be practicing/learning various rescues in the flat conditions of Pillar Point Harbor. After lunch everyone was to do a short portage over to a cove that's protected by a reef. It was a very calm day so the waves were very small and manageable by pretty much everyone. One person though did swim and I happened to be closest so I went over to offer some assistance.
As I pulled up I asked him first if he wanted any help. It was a rescue clinic after all so perhaps he wanted to cowboy back in or something. I don't recall exactly what he said but it wasn't an answer to my question. I asked him again if he wanted help and, again, got an answer that really didn't answer. Something about how the wave surprised him or something. Briefly I was concerned he was genuinely disoriented but decided to ask one more time and, finally, got my answer. Yes, he wanted some help. Whew. I'm entirely able to get someone incapacitated back into their boat, but I've never even thought about how to deal with someone in distress but actively unwilling to assist. Not to say that's where the guy was, but it crossed my mind. Something new to think about.
Anyway I ask the the guy to flip his boat over (because that's how you do a standard T-Rescue dammit) and immediately I start getting lip. He might get water in the boat. His head might go under water. I tell him it'll be fine, just flip the boat over. So he does and I grab it. He swims to the back of his boat for whatever wrong reason and proceeds to start telling me what to do. He's going to push down on the back or something and make sure I have a good hold on the boat and like that. I realized, all of a sudden, this guy has been either incredibly poorly trained or he's never been trained at all. So I started laughing, and I tell him that, this time, I'm going to let him get away with giving orders, but the rescuer is in control of the rescue. He says ok, and then tells me to grab the boat and hold it tight he's going to do a heel hook. I asked him to wait, emptied the boat and then he heel hooks in. While he's getting sorted he tells me to not let go. I'm actually guffawing at this point because it's just funny as hell this guy is out on the ocean. Anyway, he explains that the last time this happened the rescuer didn't hang on and that caused problems and blah, blah, blah. It was hard to hear him. I was laughing.
As the world is made up of little more than a seemingly random series of coincidences (heh) a couple of days later I received the new Sea Kayak Rescues DVD put together by Body Boat Blade. (Full disclosure. Leon and Shawna are friends of mine. I'd like to think though that if I didn't like their movie I wouldn't say anything at all in public. I have no vested interest in the DVD so I'm not shilling here.) Let me digress a bit and talk about the movie.
I've watched it five times already. It is unquestionably different than the other instructional DVDs I have. For one, at about 26 minutes long (not counting some extras) it's quite compact. I have other instructional DVDs that are 3 times that long. (Interestingly the longest one I've watched twice in 4 years.) It's also not a "talking head" movie. That is it's not one of those, "Do this. Then this. Now that. But if that occurs then this." type movies. I'll be honest. The first time I watched the movie I didn't get it. It was shorted than I expected. There was less talking than I expected. A lot less talking. It didn't follow an arc I expected.
I've mentioned this before, at least indirectly, but if you can get those guys to talk about coaching (it's not hard) you sort of quickly realize that, pedagogically, very little that they do is not planned or considered. If you're in a class and they're doing something it's probably for a reason. To this day I will tell anyone that asks one of the best classes I ever took was one in which Leon never got in a boat, and never said more than like 10 words in a row to any of the students. If the movie was odd it likely wasn't due to a lack of consideration.
I'm not sure but I think the movie is important. Not because of the content, which is of course important because it's about rescues. Rather because, perhaps, it might change what people consider an instructional DVD to be. Notice please I said might. I'm not an expert. I am however getting something out of the movie each time I watch it. And it is certainly something to watch. Actively. Attentively. At least I think so.
Anyway, in this movie Leon says something like, if there's one word I'd use to describe our rescue philosophy it would be efficiency. Shawna uses the word simplicity.
After I watched their movie I was reflecting again on my experience with the guy in Half Moon Bay and came to my own one word summary of a rescue philosophy. As far as possible rescues should be inevitable. I wish his experiences had let him think that was true.
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