Kayak – AC Canoe Adventures

It was a bit late in the year when we bought our sea kayaks, so it was something of a race to get out and play before Winter set in.

I have a love-hate relationship with bodies of water – on the one hand I am very nervous of it and not a natural swimmer. On the other, I have always loved being by it; childhood memories of happy seaside holidays, rock-pooling and collecting ‘Eye-Spy’ points (anyone else remember those?). 30 years ago, in an effort to overcome this rather overwhelming fear of water, I took a Winter course with a canoe club. It was all about rolling BATS and the first thing we had to do was dive in and swim two lengths of the pool. I can swim two lengths, (not stylishly), but not dive and it was something of a ‘swim of shame’. The kindly (I think not!) instructor selected me to sit in the BAT first and told me to capsize it. Well – for all you water-babies out there you probably wonder what the fuss was about, but it was a move of terror for me. To cut a long story short, I never really got into kayaking from that point. (I wonder why?) As a coach in my current life, many years later, this makes me absolutely cringe…..

Surely this ditch-and-retrieve things isn’t that hard?

A few years on I met the love of my life who was a keen sport diver. He is a complete water-baby, and even now I’m not sure how he hides his gills. It took me a whole Winter of weekly pool training to get my basic SAA qualifications and I remember my poor husband watching in frustration and splashing his fins on the pool surface while I tried vainly to duck dive and to swim a width under water. I got there with a lot of support, confidence-building slowly – oh, so slowly – until I could successfully complete my ditch and retrieve in 5m of water. Only such a non-water-baby as me could have chosen a club that used the pool used by SBS for training.

I now believe that the struggle muscle that got me through not only sport diving, but qualifying as dive supervisor, and later to technical and mixed gas diving was powerful in making the sport enjoyable for me. It wasn’t something that was going to happen fast, but the small steps to confidence were lasting.

I loved diving – not the boat trips (sea-sick), not the agony of warming up after Winter dives in a wetsuit, not the fast drift dives in murky water over rocky ledges, not the heaving about of hefty kit. What I loved was the sea life, cute tompot blennies peering out of pipes under Swanage pier, the velvety sea slugs in the Mediterranean, shoals of manta off St Helena. But some of the best were the seals. Those wonderful, curious, elegant swimmers that I first came face to face with on the Barrel of Butter up on Orkney.

And now? Now I want to go out in a sea kayak and see seals. This is where my kayaking story really starts.

With a determination that a few waves aren’t going to deter me from getting out in a kayak, it was important to build my confidence; diminish the fear of capsizing; learn to be calm in this alien environment and go out and enjoy the coast.

First steps were a course in basic flat-water skills at Cardiff International White Water in August 2019. Next, get out there on the sea and have some fun. Now, starting out for 2020 I want to try and get confident enough to roll and avoid wet exits form the kayak….

So here we go. While waiting for our plane to go skiing in January we booked our places at Plas Y Brenin in March this year.

We set out on a blustery wet Friday afternoon for North Wales and by the time we arrived at PYB we were ready for a relaxing beer in the bar. Many moons ago, it was almost impossible to get a decent pint in Wales (lager or Brains only, and never on a Sunday) PYB’s bar has great beer and decent, filling food; so that was a good start to our weekend. It’s always handy to be drinking alongside another beer drinker, so Christopher wasn’t surprised that after he’d ordered a pint, I checked it to see if it was worth having, or whether I should choose differently.

The pool sessions were great, with excellent coaching. I suppose that some might see it as a fail that I wasn’t rolling in two days. I see it as a great and steady foundation on which to continue slowly building confidence. My big ‘aha’ was finding my orientation upside-down and under water.

Assisted rolling – finally bringing my head out of the water last

It’s a shame that I can’t get to pool sessions with the local clubs, as I am sure that this would be a superb way to build my knowledge, experience and confidence. Sadly, work either takes me away too much, or I am coaching equestrians in their spare evenings. Nonetheless, we live within easy distance of lots of water – rivers, lagoons, seaside. So, keen to get out, we took the kayaks down to Cardiff for a paddle in The Bay. It was rougher than it was on our New Year’s Day trip, and rather colder, so in spite of our best intentions to practice capsizes, wet exits, rolls…. we succumbed to the idea of hot soup and warm clothes…

Anyway, thinking back on my first trip in Two Tonne Tess (my rather weighty blue Scorpio), in September 19, when even a ripple sent me rushing back to the safety of dry land, it seems that the trips we’ve made have started, just slowly to build that -oh so precious, oh so important and ohhh so elusive – confidence.

I can’t wait for warmer weather and gentler breezes….

So, the grand idea is to go touring in sea kayaks. I dream of seeing seals from the sea, get to beautiful bays with empty sands or dramatic cliffs. I love seeing all wildlife, the wonderful fauna and flora of our country. I like the idea of hearing the gentle slip slap of (tiny!) waves on the hull of the boat, some physical effort in paddling so that I feel that I can justify a good pint and hearty meal later. There is just a small problem ….. I am afraid of water. I can cope with shallows, but once there is a body of water beneath me, it all feels rather nerve-wracking.

Sea Kayak off Solva — Christopher at Solva

Overcoming the fear

There is an argument made by psychologists that it is less about overcoming a fear and more about putting it in its right place; managing it, living with it, accepting it, but working to minimise its negative effects. Let’s face it, our gut instincts are there for good reason; a degree of ‘nervousness’ is important. That touch of adrenaline gives us an edge. We just don’t want the full-blown flight response.

In practice this means that we need to follow a process of building confidence through technical skill and experience. We need to reflect on our experiences and take the positives forward, but put right the things that didn’t go so well.

It cannot happen overnight and confidence can remain a fragile being. It’s important to nurture the good bits, celebrate every small success and always be mindful of how far we’ve come. Mitigate the risks (let’s avoid big tide races, bad weather, crashing swells), wear the right gear and get used to it, then go for a paddle. Test out the fearsome capsize in a safe place, don’t try too much too soon. For me then, it will be about knowing that a capsize will get me wet, but I’ve done several now and I’m still going back for more. I can get out of the boat and also back into it. This is the practical stuff, this is the bit about building the right neural pathways and muscle memory so we can react swiftly and correctly when we need to.

Getting started

The first question is one that is far too rarely explored. (And it is the same in so many sports and I have seen it often enough in my equestrian coaching). It is: ‘do you want to be doing this? or do you like the idea of doing it?’

Are you sure? — Do you REALLY want to do this?

Most sports get expensive pretty quickly, so this is a good first test. (Will I spend the money necessary?). The next is to commit. Some people are great at getting going – me, I need deadlines and fixed times so there was really only one answer – book a course. Wednesday evening equestrian sessions were quiet for the Summer holidays so I swapped them for an introduction to kayaking at Cardiff International White Water. https://www.ciww.com The idea was to prove to myself either that there was no way that I was going to put up with unexpected and unceremonious dips into cold water, or, alternatively that it would all start to feel rather less terrifying. Christopher (who is a complete water baby) is convinced that a ducking in the sea is far less dangerous that coming off a horse whilst galloping over fixed timber at almost 20mph. Maybe, but I have spent the last (ahem) years practicing falling off horses and for me it’s just one of those things. It doesn’t play hugely on my mind every time I get on.

There’s the first learning, then. Develop a normality and a realistic perspective.

Three weeks into my course (still not drowned!) and we have learned the basics of going forwards in a straight line (‘haha’, laugh the little Mamba kayaks that only want to spin!), going sideways (I can do that one, it’s about getting the paddle in the right place, so it felt rather different from the same stroke in the canoe), stopping and getting out. All good and some fun exercises.

I think that a number of things have helped – in a kayak you need core strength and flexibility, which are also essential when riding a horse. Tick. A determination to get out on the sea and feel comfortable with it. Tick. Some experience on the water – certainly some of our experiences in the canoe have helped here – especially having paddled in moving water (and being spat out in rapids). Tick.

What next?

After far too many evenings trawling ebay, I gave up and finally found a P and H Scorpio nearby: a short trip to Up and Under in Cardiff where Elan was a mine of information. Walked out with Beautiful Blue.

up and under Cardiff, a gem of a shop — Picking up a new toy from up and under in Cardiff

On the premise that I now need practical experience and paddling hours to increase my confidence on the water, this is what we got up to next.

First, a great trip to Solva where the Beautiful Blue proved a lot less tippy than the very smart Tiderace that Christopher paddles – I wont be swapping! (OK OK, when I stop being a tippy paddler, it might feel better…)

We had fabulous weather and warm seas, so we found a sheltered bay and practiced all kinds of useful things: capsize drills, getting back in the boats (not as easy as it sounds!), forward paddling, and lots of other useful strokes. We also tried the start of rolling by putting the boats at 90 degrees so we could hold on and lie into the water then pull up.

We are lucky to have the flat water of the Monmouth and Brecon canal almost on our doorstep (1/4 mile!), so we have been putting in the hours getting used to the feel of the boats, seeing how they react, finding the edge and avoiding the narrow boats (not as scary as Steve Backshall and the Greenland Icebergs that we watched on TV this weekend).

There is a lot to be said for exploring our actions – Marianne Davies of Dynamics coaching explains this far better than I can, but it comes down to practicing, pushing and understanding our (sporting) environment. You can read one of her excellent blogs here: https://dynamics-coaching.com/articles/learning-in-the-ugly-zone/

….and for our next trick

Next we will be going away with the Kayaks and take out next steps (paddle strokes) towards longer exploration around our amazing coast.

Tag: Kayak

Sea Kayaking – confidence and motivation

Sea Kayaks…..

Overcoming the fear

Getting started

What next?

….and for our next trick