Being a dizzy blonde, rolling a kayak has always been problematic. When it doesn’t work it’s nauseating. Until you practice it doesn’t work. When practice makes you sick, dizzy, unable to walk in a straight line and feel like general crap you don’t practice. Therefore no roll.
No roll = no 3* white water pass. I’ve failed it twice and to be honest gave up as I couldn’t really be bothered to get a doctors note. I’m a good swimmer (more on that soon).
Whilst on holibobs in the US I went to a paddlers meet up – Door County Sea Kayak Symposium and swapped from a surf lesson (there was no surf) into doing a sea kayak rolling session. The whole symposium I had found quite daunting as the groups I was in seemed to be full of chaps who could do it all. It took me a while to work through that they perhaps had more of an issue admitting they were not infallible than us Brits.
As I discovered “my roll is solid, I just want to improve it” means my half roll is great, however I have a problem breathing under water.
The chaps teaching the rolling session work the other way round than in the UK, focussing first on what to do when you are just coming up, using a fake seal (avataq) to get you balancing off the back of your boat. Very quickly – roll sorted (plus I now know a way to dangle lazily off the back of my boat to relax, if I have a handy seal.
I then took what I learnt onto my next white water trip. I Well these chaps in the US have that roll sorted so well that it was enough to get me through my 3*.
Now to use it in anger!!!
I got home and bought myself a seal so now I want to take it out to play. So, if you see a kayaker out with a pet seal, you know what they’re up to.
BTW – I got ice cream as a treat for passing – need to pass tests more often.
DizzyBlonde 