GGSKS

It has been just a helluva long time since I've posted anything here. I've been in a bit of a kayaking funk for quite a while so I just really didn't feel like I had much to say. Not that feeling like having something to say is the same as actually having something to say, but I digress.

I think one of the things that most got me back to the path of enjoyment was the Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium (GGSKS for the cool kids). To be honest I wasn't even going to go this, the fourth, year. I'd been to the first three and I had a really good time the first two years but last year was just a bummer for me. The reasons why probably don't matter much, even if I could say what they were exactly.

A friend of mine, Leon (of Leon and Shawna fame), cajoled me into going though. Kind of a gotta support the team thing, an argument that I'm pretty susceptible to. I think he knows that. Anyway I'm really happy he made the effort, I think this was the best GGSKS so far, at least as far as I'm concerned.

I didn't stay at the hostel this time, and I think that was a great idea. From my perspective the hostel is the best and worst part of the symposium structure. The best part is that it's where most of the attendees and coaches stay so it's just a bubbling cauldron of kayaking. The worst part is that, for me, it's hard to get a good nights sleep there. So I ended up staying in a hotel just a couple of minutes up the road. It was way more expensive than the hostel to be sure but it was entirely worth it.

Another good choice I think i made was how I managed my schedule. There's just a shit load of really great classes offered. But the fact is the most exciting are also the most exhausting. So I sort of did easyish, hard, easy. Day one was an edge control class with a possibility of getting into some conditions to work on that stuff in the realer world. Day two was an incident management class which I anticipated would be strenuous (and it pretty much was) and the last day was a coastal journey that I had some confidence wouldn't be coastal due to conditions and so would be pretty easy (and that's what happened). In previous symposiums by the last day I'd be completely knackered and that just sucks. Not this year, and that was really great.

So, more or less, those were the things I did to make the GGSKS a great time but the organizers seem to have things pretty well dialed now and that totally helped. The coaches were, by all accounts, exemplary. And for the first time classes had an attendee limit. Heretofore one could sign up for a class and have 25 people in it (happened to me once). Sometimes it worked out fine (happened to me once) sometimes not but limiting the class size made that a moot concern. One of the things I consider when picking a class is the coach(es) so knowing that when I sign up for a class with XYZ coach I'm going to have XYZ coach teaching is nothing but win.

Anyway, yah, I had a great time, I'm energized about padding again, planning trips and such, met some hella cool new people and spent time with old friends. Hard to beat.