"Did you feel that? The wind changed direction to off shore.", I said to Katherine, my paddling partner that day.
Katherine, who is also the president of the kayak (or is it kayaking) club I'm in, had called for a short little coastal paddle. The plan, roughly, was to head out of Santa Cruz harbor, go right, and head down Capitola. It was a nice day, 4ft swell at like 8 seconds or something, winds like 5kts, patchy clouds, slight chance of rain. Just, you know, nice.
Now it turns out that I am, with very little doubt, an exceptionally well trained sea kayaker. This is not arrogance as there isn't much credit I can take for the circumstance. All I've done is seek out and train with the best coaches I could find and afford in terms of money and time. And while, in many regards, my on the water skills do not do justice to the quality of my coaches and training, when it comes to the non-motor skill bits of the sport I feel rather the opposite.
One "skill", if you can call it that, that I practice vigorously is dynamic risk assessment. Different coaches and instructors of mine have called it different things. Situational awareness. Environmental awareness. Attention to detail. Probably a few others. For various reasons I think dynamic risk assessment (DRA, because I'm really down with TLAs), is the most useful nomenclature and that's what I use. And DRA is something my regular coaches pretty much constantly talk and question about. Regardless of what one calls it though, all this is about is constantly evaluating the conditions in which you are immersed for changes that might demand a change in what you are doing or had planned to do. So if you're paddling along and hear thunder, maybe you'd want to think about getting off the water. For example.
So when I felt the wind coming from the shore I noticed. In fact the forecast had called for NW winds at 5 and, given our orientation, the wind was now NE. Still around 5 but, as I say, offshore. And offshore winds, as I'm sure you know or have been taught can be a really big deal. Not at 5, but if wind is offshore it's worth paying attention to regardless of speed. And it was this that caused me to make mention of it to Katherine. But I'm not at all sure what made me do what I did next.
I always (always) carry a compass in my PFD (life jacket, whatever) and I pulled it out and took a look. And I looked up and sez to Katherine, "Katherine, which way are we heading?" to which she replied, quickly and without much thought because she was watching some boardies, "West". Which is totally what I had thought because Capitola was directly behind us, it's on the Pacific coast so, sure, we were heading west. But she stopped watching the boardies when I said, "We're heading south." and looked at me for a second with a how-did-you-get-that-wrong look. So I paddled over and showed her my compass and damn. South.
On the one hand this was really good. The winds weren't NE and offshore, they were NW just like NOAA called for. On the other hand this was pretty bad. I didn't know where we were. I mean I knew where we were I the sense of, you know, there's Capitola right there for chrisakes. But in the sense of like mayday mayday, we're at such and so location I was pretty fucked. Had I been asked to swear on my life as to our location, I'd have sworn about one and a half miles west of Capitola. And since, at some level, mayday mayday is nauticalese for I-swear-on-someones-life you don't want to get what you're saying wrong very often.
So much then for my feeling good about my non-motor skills. Sure, I pay attention to the wind, the water, who's looking nervous, where the boomers are. All of that DRA stuff. But I couldn't have told you correctly where to find us if someones life had depended on it. Which, as I mentioned, it probably would have if I had had to tell someone at that moment. In my defense, this isn't a place I've paddled very often. Maybe once or twice. To my great chagrin though I didn't bring a chart.
It was an inexpensive lesson this time. I hope I learned something. I wonder what I'm gonna learn next and hope it's as inexpensive.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Too damn nice
I decided to paddle around Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island this past weekend. I wasn't expecting serious conditions but I really wasn't expecting this:
This is just outside the Berkeley Marina at about 10AM and is also the place we have done several rough water rescue practices. It looks a little different then. Here's why:
This is directly west of where the first picture was taken. I just rotated about 90 degrees from the first picture and shot it. It's hard to see but that's the Golden Gate bridge there. Just past that is the Pacific Ocean, and just past that is Japan. So when a west wind is blowing there's a decent fetch and you get some nice sized wind waves.
Despite the overly calm conditions it was of course great to be on the water. In general the San Francisco bay is a pretty nice place to paddle. That said it's a populous place and with that comes a great deal of human impact. Like this:
See that cloud right there in the middle? It's not a cloud. It's something to do with refining or chemical operations there in Richmond. All of those white dots towards the right are tanks. There's a bunch of other tanks but they painted those brown and from this distance you can't actually see them, but they're there.
To my eyes at least not all human artifacts are terrible. Here's San Francisco from the north west corner of Treasure Island:
That sloping down bit on the left side is the actual north west tip of Treasure Island (TI). TI is actually an artificial island built in the 1930's for some reason or other. Umm...right, Wikipedia says 1939 for the Expo, whatever that is. At some point it became a navy base. I know that because I spent two weeks there waiting to go to Okinawa while I was in the navy.
Since we're doing tourist stuff here:
Almost exactly between that island on the left (it's Alcatraz by the way) and that ship there on the right, to the right of the right hand tower of the Golden Gate if you can see it, is the venue for the Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium.
This here is just south of the west side of the Bay bridge:
This is the side of the bridge that didn't fall down in the 1989 Loma Prieta earth quake. The water is a little jobblier here because of currents. This was about 11:16 which was max ebb that day. The current was only about 1.4 knots or so, but I'd stayed close to shore to take advantage of the little bit of eddy current that was available. Why fight?
Ok, this is the south east corner of Yerba Buena (YB) island:
YB is controlled mostly or entirely by the Coast Guard and they have a bouy repair facility there and that's what this picture is of. Or at least a part of it. There's not much to indicate scale but those bouys are seriously big. Maybe the life ring towards the right hand side of the dock is a decent indicator. Actually here:
That's a little better. You can see that sea gull there on top too.
Up above I talked about the part of the Bay bridge that didn't fall down in the earth quake. The other side, the east side, of the bridge did actually fall down. So they decided to rebuild it. It's only 20 years later so it's still not done, but it's close to done. Here's a picture from down below of a portion of the old bridge that was modified to accomodate construction of the new bridge:
It looks kinda odd for a highway doesn't it? That's the S curve portion of the Bay bridge. They put it in to make room for the new bridge. Here's what it looks like from above:
So one night a while ago someone was going the speed limit, which turned out to be too fast, and went zoom, right over the side. Poor guy died.
Not too many people get to see the new bridge construction up close like you can from a boat. It's pretty interesting to see. It's just so big. Gigantic really. But of all of it I think I enjoyed this part the best:
Can you see that there? It's a ladder. Do you see that next to it? It's a two story building. I can totally hear the conversation that resulted in that ladder being built.
Manager type: ...and then a ladder. From the ground to the supporting structure.
Engineer type: ...Ok. Why?
Manager type: And yellow. It has to be yellow...What do you mean why?
Engineer type: I mean why. Do you know how tall that ladder will be? At least a hundred feet.
Manager type: So?
Engineer type: But who's going to climb it? It's a hundred feet straight up! Would you climb it?
Manger type: Well, no. But we want a ladder. A yellow ladder. It'll look really cool and you never know. Maybe the electricity will go out or something and we'll need to climb up manually to work on the bridge.
Engineer type: <stunned pause> If the electricity is out there's going to be a lot of other reasons why work is going to stop besides just not having a ladder right?
Manager type: <considered reflection> Maybe. But it'll still look cool. It's gotta be yellow though ok?
Engineer type: <sigh> Yellow ladder, more than 100 feet tall. Sure. No problem.
Several weeks later:
Manager type: I gotta fever! A fever for more 100 foot yellow ladders!
Manager type: Look, I gotta have more yellow ladders!
Manager type: Yah! Now we're rockin!
I'm not really a sports fan but I do enjoy football season. It seems like there's a lot less traffic on the bay when there's a game and that's great. The bay can get seriously busy some days and it's entirely not pleasant to be a lone paddler then. So I was happy to run across basically no traffic at all during my little trip. There were a couple of boats but no big deal and everyone was sticking to channels and seemed to be well behaved. A little further north though it looked pretty crazy:
All of those white things are sails. For sail boats probably. I'm guessing there was some sort of sailing event going on but who knows. In any case I was happy to be as far away from them as I was. Oh, and I'm not sure if you can make it out, but see that red blotch towards the right of the picture? About a third of the way in from the right edge, right on the water? That's Red Rock. It's an island and it's for sale. Seriously. For $20,000,000.00 you can own it. I don't think you can build anything on it though.
So that's it. A an uneventful trip on a warm, calm day on a part of the bay. There are worse ways of spending ones time.
This is just outside the Berkeley Marina at about 10AM and is also the place we have done several rough water rescue practices. It looks a little different then. Here's why:
This is directly west of where the first picture was taken. I just rotated about 90 degrees from the first picture and shot it. It's hard to see but that's the Golden Gate bridge there. Just past that is the Pacific Ocean, and just past that is Japan. So when a west wind is blowing there's a decent fetch and you get some nice sized wind waves.
Despite the overly calm conditions it was of course great to be on the water. In general the San Francisco bay is a pretty nice place to paddle. That said it's a populous place and with that comes a great deal of human impact. Like this:
See that cloud right there in the middle? It's not a cloud. It's something to do with refining or chemical operations there in Richmond. All of those white dots towards the right are tanks. There's a bunch of other tanks but they painted those brown and from this distance you can't actually see them, but they're there.
To my eyes at least not all human artifacts are terrible. Here's San Francisco from the north west corner of Treasure Island:
That sloping down bit on the left side is the actual north west tip of Treasure Island (TI). TI is actually an artificial island built in the 1930's for some reason or other. Umm...right, Wikipedia says 1939 for the Expo, whatever that is. At some point it became a navy base. I know that because I spent two weeks there waiting to go to Okinawa while I was in the navy.
Since we're doing tourist stuff here:
Almost exactly between that island on the left (it's Alcatraz by the way) and that ship there on the right, to the right of the right hand tower of the Golden Gate if you can see it, is the venue for the Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium.
This here is just south of the west side of the Bay bridge:
This is the side of the bridge that didn't fall down in the 1989 Loma Prieta earth quake. The water is a little jobblier here because of currents. This was about 11:16 which was max ebb that day. The current was only about 1.4 knots or so, but I'd stayed close to shore to take advantage of the little bit of eddy current that was available. Why fight?
Ok, this is the south east corner of Yerba Buena (YB) island:
YB is controlled mostly or entirely by the Coast Guard and they have a bouy repair facility there and that's what this picture is of. Or at least a part of it. There's not much to indicate scale but those bouys are seriously big. Maybe the life ring towards the right hand side of the dock is a decent indicator. Actually here:
That's a little better. You can see that sea gull there on top too.
Up above I talked about the part of the Bay bridge that didn't fall down in the earth quake. The other side, the east side, of the bridge did actually fall down. So they decided to rebuild it. It's only 20 years later so it's still not done, but it's close to done. Here's a picture from down below of a portion of the old bridge that was modified to accomodate construction of the new bridge:
It looks kinda odd for a highway doesn't it? That's the S curve portion of the Bay bridge. They put it in to make room for the new bridge. Here's what it looks like from above:
So one night a while ago someone was going the speed limit, which turned out to be too fast, and went zoom, right over the side. Poor guy died.
Not too many people get to see the new bridge construction up close like you can from a boat. It's pretty interesting to see. It's just so big. Gigantic really. But of all of it I think I enjoyed this part the best:
Can you see that there? It's a ladder. Do you see that next to it? It's a two story building. I can totally hear the conversation that resulted in that ladder being built.
Manager type: ...and then a ladder. From the ground to the supporting structure.
Engineer type: ...Ok. Why?
Manager type: And yellow. It has to be yellow...What do you mean why?
Engineer type: I mean why. Do you know how tall that ladder will be? At least a hundred feet.
Manager type: So?
Engineer type: But who's going to climb it? It's a hundred feet straight up! Would you climb it?
Manger type: Well, no. But we want a ladder. A yellow ladder. It'll look really cool and you never know. Maybe the electricity will go out or something and we'll need to climb up manually to work on the bridge.
Engineer type: <stunned pause> If the electricity is out there's going to be a lot of other reasons why work is going to stop besides just not having a ladder right?
Manager type: <considered reflection> Maybe. But it'll still look cool. It's gotta be yellow though ok?
Engineer type: <sigh> Yellow ladder, more than 100 feet tall. Sure. No problem.
Several weeks later:
Manager type: I gotta fever! A fever for more 100 foot yellow ladders!
Manager type: Look, I gotta have more yellow ladders!
Manager type: Yah! Now we're rockin!
I'm not really a sports fan but I do enjoy football season. It seems like there's a lot less traffic on the bay when there's a game and that's great. The bay can get seriously busy some days and it's entirely not pleasant to be a lone paddler then. So I was happy to run across basically no traffic at all during my little trip. There were a couple of boats but no big deal and everyone was sticking to channels and seemed to be well behaved. A little further north though it looked pretty crazy:
All of those white things are sails. For sail boats probably. I'm guessing there was some sort of sailing event going on but who knows. In any case I was happy to be as far away from them as I was. Oh, and I'm not sure if you can make it out, but see that red blotch towards the right of the picture? About a third of the way in from the right edge, right on the water? That's Red Rock. It's an island and it's for sale. Seriously. For $20,000,000.00 you can own it. I don't think you can build anything on it though.
So that's it. A an uneventful trip on a warm, calm day on a part of the bay. There are worse ways of spending ones time.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Really, can we finally get past this?
Imagine my excitement when I read that Heliconia Press was launching something called Paddling TV. Here's the press release if you like that sort of stuff:
I guess not surprisingly sea kayaking is part of this as the imaginatively named Sea Kayaking TV. I found it at YouTube. Here's a link:
Of course I ran right over there and started checking things out. Wow, sea kayaking on TV! Sort of. It's really on the web so calling it TV is, strictly speaking, wrong. But whatever, right? It's video stuff about sea kayaking! Maybe they'll be covering expeditions and expeditioners! Or different paddling destinations around the world! Excited, as I say.
I was a little disappointed to see that, at least for now, it's just a bunch of short instructional videos. Sigh. Oh well, maybe they'll do some of that culture and community stuff in the future. I don't know about you, but I have a fairly hard time learning from a video. I do have a few instructional videos. And I've probably picked up a tip or two from them. But without some form of feedback, be it another human or just me feeling the water, I really don't learn very much. But whatever. It's Sea Kayaking TV! It's a start and the cool stuff will be coming! Excited, as I say.
Anyway, what the heck, being I was there I decided I might as well take a look at some of this stuff. Just to sort of get a whiff of the operation. The one I chose was called Re-entering a Sit-Inside Kayak - Part 1. I got to watch an advertisement about something but it had bike polo in it, so that's way cool. And then some guy named, evidently, Ken Whiting came on screen and started talking. Good screen presence I thought. I like his delivery and stuff. I'm not a professional critic or anything BTW.
So I'm watching this video and, not surprisingly, it's pretty basic. It's about getting into your boat after all. But it's saying things like, "...your first job as a swimmer is to keep hold of all of your gear...", which is totally reasonable. It talked about air bags, and some other stuff that I thought was, again, totally reasonable. Which is great because really getting back in your boat is really not a particularly contentious topic is it? Well, at least I thought so. I got to the 1:37 mark in the video and basically started throwing up. Why don't you go take a look. Pay attention at the 1:37 mark especially. Keep your bucket close at hand. Go, I'll wait...
Right, so did you notice anything wrong? I did. How about this. Wrong. It was wrong. Here's one definition of wrong from the web:
incorrect: not correct; not in conformity with fact or truth; "an incorrect calculation"; "the report in the paper is wrong"; "your information is wrong"; "the clock showed the wrong time"; "found themselves on the wrong road"; "based on the wrong assumptions"
Let's review a couple of errors:
"...identify the bow of the upside down kayak...". Wrong. First step, tell the swimmer to flip their boat. This is so all of those handy dandy deck lines and toggles and easy grabby things are there for you to grab.
"...make their way to the bow of the rescuers boat...". Wrong. When in conditions the ends of a boat are the most dangerous places to be. They are relatively pointy and experience the greatest potential for movement as opposed to, say, the area around the cock pit. Which is where the swimmer should be.
"...they should go to the stern of their kayak where they can press down on the back of the boat...". Wrong. See above. Also, if the swimmer loses contact with the boat they are now rather a far way away. Oh, and have you ever actually tried to pull a boat onto your deck to empty it with someone on the back? How about a full boat?
"...the rescuer will hold the bow of the kayak...". Wrong. Because what the video is showing is the rescuer lifting up the bow of the boat. Now don't talk to me about the swimmer is pushing down and all that happy horse shit. First, I defy you to lift the bow of a boat loaded with a weeks provisions. Go ahead, try. Second, why do you want to lift the bow? Why expose yourself to a potential injury in conditions that knocked someone else over? There's a better way.
Really, haven't we gotten past teaching this method by now? It's slow, it's incredibly inefficient and in conditions, where you will most likely need it, it's dangerous. So here's a tip. If you want to take a beginning class, before you sign up, ask what the steps are in a T-Rescue. It doesn't matter that you might not understand the reply. Just understand this. If the person on the other end of the phone/email/text/whatever says, at any point, "and then the swimmer pushes down on the end of the boat", hang up and go seek competent instruction. You'll probably have a better time, you'll be more likely to stay with the sport and I'll be happier.
Push down on the end of the boat. Jesus.
I guess not surprisingly sea kayaking is part of this as the imaginatively named Sea Kayaking TV. I found it at YouTube. Here's a link:
I was a little disappointed to see that, at least for now, it's just a bunch of short instructional videos. Sigh. Oh well, maybe they'll do some of that culture and community stuff in the future. I don't know about you, but I have a fairly hard time learning from a video. I do have a few instructional videos. And I've probably picked up a tip or two from them. But without some form of feedback, be it another human or just me feeling the water, I really don't learn very much. But whatever. It's Sea Kayaking TV! It's a start and the cool stuff will be coming! Excited, as I say.
Anyway, what the heck, being I was there I decided I might as well take a look at some of this stuff. Just to sort of get a whiff of the operation. The one I chose was called Re-entering a Sit-Inside Kayak - Part 1. I got to watch an advertisement about something but it had bike polo in it, so that's way cool. And then some guy named, evidently, Ken Whiting came on screen and started talking. Good screen presence I thought. I like his delivery and stuff. I'm not a professional critic or anything BTW.
So I'm watching this video and, not surprisingly, it's pretty basic. It's about getting into your boat after all. But it's saying things like, "...your first job as a swimmer is to keep hold of all of your gear...", which is totally reasonable. It talked about air bags, and some other stuff that I thought was, again, totally reasonable. Which is great because really getting back in your boat is really not a particularly contentious topic is it? Well, at least I thought so. I got to the 1:37 mark in the video and basically started throwing up. Why don't you go take a look. Pay attention at the 1:37 mark especially. Keep your bucket close at hand. Go, I'll wait...
Right, so did you notice anything wrong? I did. How about this. Wrong. It was wrong. Here's one definition of wrong from the web:
incorrect: not correct; not in conformity with fact or truth; "an incorrect calculation"; "the report in the paper is wrong"; "your information is wrong"; "the clock showed the wrong time"; "found themselves on the wrong road"; "based on the wrong assumptions"
Let's review a couple of errors:
"...identify the bow of the upside down kayak...". Wrong. First step, tell the swimmer to flip their boat. This is so all of those handy dandy deck lines and toggles and easy grabby things are there for you to grab.
"...make their way to the bow of the rescuers boat...". Wrong. When in conditions the ends of a boat are the most dangerous places to be. They are relatively pointy and experience the greatest potential for movement as opposed to, say, the area around the cock pit. Which is where the swimmer should be.
"...they should go to the stern of their kayak where they can press down on the back of the boat...". Wrong. See above. Also, if the swimmer loses contact with the boat they are now rather a far way away. Oh, and have you ever actually tried to pull a boat onto your deck to empty it with someone on the back? How about a full boat?
"...the rescuer will hold the bow of the kayak...". Wrong. Because what the video is showing is the rescuer lifting up the bow of the boat. Now don't talk to me about the swimmer is pushing down and all that happy horse shit. First, I defy you to lift the bow of a boat loaded with a weeks provisions. Go ahead, try. Second, why do you want to lift the bow? Why expose yourself to a potential injury in conditions that knocked someone else over? There's a better way.
Really, haven't we gotten past teaching this method by now? It's slow, it's incredibly inefficient and in conditions, where you will most likely need it, it's dangerous. So here's a tip. If you want to take a beginning class, before you sign up, ask what the steps are in a T-Rescue. It doesn't matter that you might not understand the reply. Just understand this. If the person on the other end of the phone/email/text/whatever says, at any point, "and then the swimmer pushes down on the end of the boat", hang up and go seek competent instruction. You'll probably have a better time, you'll be more likely to stay with the sport and I'll be happier.
Push down on the end of the boat. Jesus.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Yoga or Drown
I've been futzing about with something called a balance brace. Sometimes it's called, apparently, a static brace. Here's a picture just so it's clear what I'm talking about:
That's not me by the way. You can tell it's not me because I can't do that. If that was me there would be several differences:
Look, who decided this Yoga crap had to be all about calm and stuff? It's damned annoying. The classes I've been to are all pretty much the same. You go into a basically and drab empty room. Sometimes there's some incense or whatever burning that, admittedly, has a not unpleasant odor. There's some ching-chingy type music playing. The students are sort of hushed in their conversation. Then you bend yourself into various positions of discomfort and at the end you take a short nap. The instructor does some hands-together thing and says some word that begins with an N and everyone get's up and quietly files out. It sucks my will to live.
Why not have a yoga room that isn't so empty and bland? Like have posters on the wall. Of awesome yoga dudes doing awesome yoga things? With explosions and stuff behind them! And maybe just open the damned windows instead of that incense crap. I'm inside most of the day for work. Why would anyone think a smokey inside would be a good thing? Right, so the ching-chingy music just has to stop. I'm not certain but I think I read they use it at Guantanamo. This is a delicate subject of course, music being such a personal thing. But maybe a little Metallica. I can imagine others would object to that choice and I'm (trying to be) flexible here so whatever really. But not the ching-chingy crap. Oh and if I want to take a nap sometime during the day would you mind terribly if I did it like most others? Drink a couple beers for lunch and nod off at work. When Yoga stretchy time is over I just want to get the hell out. I'm there to get flexible so I can maximize my OTWC factor, not lay on a too thin pad with overly quiet strangers trying to nap without a drink.
I'm really not sure that I'm ever going to get this balance brace thing though.
That's not me by the way. You can tell it's not me because I can't do that. If that was me there would be several differences:
- I would have a real paddle not a flat stick
- I wouldn't have that little wood thing on my deck because I'll (probably) never hunt seals
- My face would be about 3 inches under water and I'd be drowning
So, like I said, I've been fooling about with this balance brace thing trying to get it because it looks cool and, no need to tell you I'm sure, looking cool on the water is a strong motivator to do more or less purposeless things with ones boat and body. But despite my motivation I can't get it. I think I'm in the proper position. I'm definitely on the side of the boat like that. I think my back is flat. The only thing I can guess is wrong is that I don't have the boat far enough off of me to hold me up. Which is to say, if my assessment is correct, I'm not flexible enough to do this thing. Reducing my potential OTWC (On The Water Cool(tm)) factor a bit and that's disappointing. One way to get flexible, or at least the one that pretty much everyone recommends, is Yoga (their capitalization, not mine). I'd rather have my OTWC go to 0 and drown than go to another Yoga class or even watch another Yoga video.
Look, who decided this Yoga crap had to be all about calm and stuff? It's damned annoying. The classes I've been to are all pretty much the same. You go into a basically and drab empty room. Sometimes there's some incense or whatever burning that, admittedly, has a not unpleasant odor. There's some ching-chingy type music playing. The students are sort of hushed in their conversation. Then you bend yourself into various positions of discomfort and at the end you take a short nap. The instructor does some hands-together thing and says some word that begins with an N and everyone get's up and quietly files out. It sucks my will to live.
Why not have a yoga room that isn't so empty and bland? Like have posters on the wall. Of awesome yoga dudes doing awesome yoga things? With explosions and stuff behind them! And maybe just open the damned windows instead of that incense crap. I'm inside most of the day for work. Why would anyone think a smokey inside would be a good thing? Right, so the ching-chingy music just has to stop. I'm not certain but I think I read they use it at Guantanamo. This is a delicate subject of course, music being such a personal thing. But maybe a little Metallica. I can imagine others would object to that choice and I'm (trying to be) flexible here so whatever really. But not the ching-chingy crap. Oh and if I want to take a nap sometime during the day would you mind terribly if I did it like most others? Drink a couple beers for lunch and nod off at work. When Yoga stretchy time is over I just want to get the hell out. I'm there to get flexible so I can maximize my OTWC factor, not lay on a too thin pad with overly quiet strangers trying to nap without a drink.
I'm really not sure that I'm ever going to get this balance brace thing though.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The Right Thing
The Right Thing is a fairly obvious concept. Something, whatever it is, is clearly correct despite the fact that no a priori correct answer is known to exist. It's not 2+2=4. That's of course right. But it's not The Right Thing. The Right Thing is more about an elegant or well executed solution to a (usually) non-trivial problem that has all the witnesses of the solution pretty much nodding in agreement, "Yup, that's The Right Thing". In the paddling world it might be the leg drop.
The leg drop, in case you're unaware, is (among other things) part of edging ones boat. I was at a lake once futzing about with some folks from my club and I mentioned the leg drop, which I'd just learned, and nobody had heard of the leg drop. So I explained and everyone tried it and nodded their head. The leg drop is an instance of The Right Thing.
One of the key components of an instance of The Right Thing is the oh yah moment. Blogs are a bad place to try to convey tonality but I'll try here. Oh yah, when it comes to The Right Thing, isn't uttered like "Aha", or "I see". The Right Thing "Oh Yah" is expressed more as "Excellent" or "Ahhh". Maybe like finding your number of a sleep number bed. Or having your first 18 year old Scotch after drinking 10 year olds for a long time.
The Right Thing is not always something particularly clever or insightful (The best instance of The Right Thing I know if is in fact both, but I'd have to talk about locking overhead versus time to create a mutex and that seems a little out of place here). But The Right Thing, whenever or where ever you run across it, is definitive. It establishes a bar, or a method of operation for whatever it is being considered.
I took (and passed) my BCU Level 1 Coach class with Body Boat Blade last week. It was I think The Right Thing. Let me show you four pictures to illustrate why I think so:
What do all these mean? Essentially 3 things. First, a huge amount of effort went into obtaining use of the proper amount and type of equipment for the class. I don't think there was a single instance where anyone had to sit on shore or be in a boat, or use a paddle, that wasn't exactly appropriate for the task at hand. Second, the amount of information covered was large but, as one might infer from the acronyms (I'm a big fan of acronyms) and doodles and like that, it was presented in a form that can easily be remembered, is actionable and of course relevant (the word BLOG there is for BLOG, but I think that snuck in mistakenly somehow). Third, that's Bill Lozano there on the left in the last picture. Bill was flown in from New York, and took time away from his business, in large part to ensure that Level 1 Coaches are being taught (and assessed) as similarly as possible in this country. Note please that the fee for the class did not go up because Bill was there.
I take a fair number of classes (a couple a year) and so consider myself a reasonably well educated consumer with regard to paddle sport education. I mentioned that The Right Thing often times sets a bar or a standard for something. This class really set a bar for me. The obvious effort that went into the whole thing is, and probably will for some time remain, a standard that I'll aspire to in any class I run. The whole event was professionals doing a professional job. Nothing was dialed in, half wayed, or any less good as it reasonably could have been (I'm thinking in terms of more sunshine here).
There's a lot more to say about this class, and I will over time, but I think this was the most important.
The leg drop, in case you're unaware, is (among other things) part of edging ones boat. I was at a lake once futzing about with some folks from my club and I mentioned the leg drop, which I'd just learned, and nobody had heard of the leg drop. So I explained and everyone tried it and nodded their head. The leg drop is an instance of The Right Thing.
One of the key components of an instance of The Right Thing is the oh yah moment. Blogs are a bad place to try to convey tonality but I'll try here. Oh yah, when it comes to The Right Thing, isn't uttered like "Aha", or "I see". The Right Thing "Oh Yah" is expressed more as "Excellent" or "Ahhh". Maybe like finding your number of a sleep number bed. Or having your first 18 year old Scotch after drinking 10 year olds for a long time.
The Right Thing is not always something particularly clever or insightful (The best instance of The Right Thing I know if is in fact both, but I'd have to talk about locking overhead versus time to create a mutex and that seems a little out of place here). But The Right Thing, whenever or where ever you run across it, is definitive. It establishes a bar, or a method of operation for whatever it is being considered.
I took (and passed) my BCU Level 1 Coach class with Body Boat Blade last week. It was I think The Right Thing. Let me show you four pictures to illustrate why I think so:
Some of the boats for the class
This is what we all came up with as having been discussed
Bill Lozano, from New York, on the left
I take a fair number of classes (a couple a year) and so consider myself a reasonably well educated consumer with regard to paddle sport education. I mentioned that The Right Thing often times sets a bar or a standard for something. This class really set a bar for me. The obvious effort that went into the whole thing is, and probably will for some time remain, a standard that I'll aspire to in any class I run. The whole event was professionals doing a professional job. Nothing was dialed in, half wayed, or any less good as it reasonably could have been (I'm thinking in terms of more sunshine here).
There's a lot more to say about this class, and I will over time, but I think this was the most important.
Monday, September 27, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
I'm a BCU level 1 coach!
Fairly quick update this one. I'm a level 1 coach in the BCU. I failed my BCU 3 star about 40 minutes ago. It's been a spectacular several days.
More later, I need a beer right now.
More later, I need a beer right now.
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