3 Star Training in Maine

I just completed 2 days of training and a 3 star sea assessment up in Maine at a 4 day symposium What a very long drive there and back too.. I thought I was going to be spending 4 days on the water but it turned out that the navigation class I took was just an all day classroom session. It was still a really good class in spite of no water time. The two day training was also very intense. The instructor thought it was a one day training and was trying to cram in a ton of information and have us do many things. Once I pointed out to him that it was a two day training, he relaxed a bit and we went back to the docks quite exhausted. The 3 star award is a leadership award, not just a skills award. We had to be able to demonstrate we could lead a group, navigate and do rescues as appropriate for the conditions. I was not able to do a good hand of god rescue and hope I never have to do one, but I will work on it anyways.

On assessment day I was a bit nervous. We had another instructor to assess us, and although I had met him before I hadn't paddled much with him. I actually wasn't sure he remembered me. There were 6 of us altogether but three of us were all from the same training class, it was nice to know a few people. The assessment went fairly well although Mother Nature was against us, we didn't really have big enough conditions so we ended up staying quite close to the rock faces and working against the ocean swells. It is amazing the power of the ocean. Maine was also an awesome venue to do this in. About halfway through the assessment, one of the other students pointed out that he felt everyone would pass, I had to disagree with him. There was one person who was looking a bit weaker in some areas and wasn't playing a good leadership role either. Everyone else looked great.

I did in the end get my 3 star sea kayak award. Part of the advice I received afterwards was that I needed to work on timing of my braces, I needed to keep an eye on the big picture when doing rescues, and that my finesse strokes were great but I should keep my arms tucked in more. I also feel I need to work on my roll some more.

The funniest thing that happened during the assessment. After I had been stuffed back in my boat as part of a controlled rescue, I was paddling around among the rocks when a large swell lifted me up turned my boat around and dropped the bow and stern up on the rocks but left me suspended upside down in the water. I ended up leaving my kayak again and came up laughing. I actually had a bit of a hard time to push the kayak up off the rocks. I got stuffed back in while we all laughed about it then I had to eat something to try to keep the cold at bay. The Maine waters were quite cold. I am glad I was borrowing a dry suit from a friend (even though I didn't like the rear relief zip).

MAFK

I went to the Mid-Atlantic Kayak Festival this weekend and I had a pretty good time. I was a little disappointed at first that the conditions would not be present for me to do the BCU 3 star training but I think it worked out best in the end that I did the training on flat water then did the ACA L3 assessment the next day which is also on flat water. I learned a lot of new things and learned how to do a lot of old things properly which was great. The last day saw more conditions when the wind picked up and I had a chance to play with some bigger waves and learn how to better control my boat in wind and wave. It was a good weekend all around for learning. It was also nice to just spend the whole weekend up at the camp grounds and not have to worry about tenting (we stayed in cabins), food (they cooked for us), and entertainment (the speakers were great as was the live music). They announced that they would be holding the festival again next year which is great for them. The classes were quite small this year but I think that once word gets out, the classes will be filled up more next year. This was definitely a good way to learn new skills while staying close to home. The drive was barely an hour to get out to the location.

ECCKF

I had an absolutely fabulous time at the festival and I am so glad I went. I was a little put off by the first two classes I took as they seemed really low level to what I could have handled but I think I still picked up some skills. Friday was a relatively quiet day for us as we got registration out of the way, then launched some boats. We went to the supper event afterwards to enjoy some company as well as listen to someone talk about their big adventure up in the Canadian Arctic. It sounded great and I had a good time catching up with some people I knew.

The Saturday class was an absolute blast and I realized I really like the relaxed style of Nigel Foster. He really is an excellent teacher. I wish we had had more time with the class, considering we got stuck in traffic on the way to the venue. I am not sure I could have done too much more then the one hour we did end up getting. The class was an intro to short boat surfing and I took my white water boat out on the ocean and surfed some waves with it. I was knocked over once near the beginning but otherwise I had a great time. The waves were a nice height that us as beginners were not too intimidated by them. I was initially a little intimidated as they are much bigger when you are sitting in a small boat, but after my first run I had too much fun after that to be scared of the waves.

Sunday proved to be my big day. I had a morning class on the ocean for advanced open water skills. This was fun as we got to go out and explore a light house plus we did a bit of surfing of the swells and quartered some waves. Then I had another ocean class that afternoon for long boat surfing. I hadn't surfed yet with the long boat and found it was very different from the short boat. I still had a great time but I found it to be more of a challenge as the long boat isn't as maneuverable as the short boat. The goal of the class was to end up broach to the wave, then to turn the boat out of the broach position. At first I had an easy time with it, then I started having trouble. I am not sure why but initially I was trying to follow the instructions and turn the boat back to face out to the ocean and the boat kept swinging around to face shore. After that the boat would simply crest the wave then I have to turn it before another wave came along. One time I was bowled over twice by a wave before managing to roll back up. The instructor was sitting right there watching me and was impressed I had the where with all to roll back up the last time. I had a great time and really can't wait to get back out on the water this year. I did learn that I need to keep my eyes open when I crest a wave, plus I need to learn to spit the salt water out of my mouth better, rather then spitting it on myself. I was absolutely exhausted that night and didn't sleep really well. The drive back was uneventful except for some showers up near DC and some traffic from an accident. I wish I didn't have to go to work tomorrow. We ate out tonight so we wouldn't have to deal with food prep. Plus it is becoming tradition.

Crazy busy

Today was a crazy busy day. We got back from Montreal yesterday which was about a 10+ hour drive. Today consisted of having to finish cleaning all the stuff out of the car, running out to get some food, loading the roof rack and kayaks on the car as well as prepping food, packing kayaking gear, packing car camping gear, and loading it all back in the car. We leave for South Carolina tomorrow which will amount to about an 8+ hour drive. At least the weather should be nice this weekend. This is the second year I have traveled to the East Coast Canoe and Kayak Festival and I hope I have just as much fun this time as I had last time. I was more careful to not over book my days with classes, but I suspect I will still be really busy with on the water events. I am really looking forward to doing the ocean classes as I haven't yet managed to really get my sea kayak out on the ocean yet. The packing was interesting as I tried to figure out where to stick all the paddles. I didn't really need to bring as many as I did but I wasn't the only one paddling and I had to bring paddles for both boats. This led to an interesting mix of paddles ranging from touring, to high-angle aggressive, to white water, to a greenland paddle. Good thing I had the paddle lock on the roof to handle the fixed shaft paddles, made packing the trunk that much easier when I didn't have to worry about opening up the trunk and the back seat.