I feel like I’ve taken a million kayak classes. ACA & BCU methodology all over the place. Of course all that is helpful, but I’ve learned much more by spending a day with friends in waves or in my own paddling experiences. Besides somethings, like water dynamics really don’t make any sense until you cope with them day to day.

Don’t Paddle Up Hill

I was told how to use a waves energy to move through the water in rough conditions. In stead of just paddling stroke by stroke as if the conditions did not exist. Newbies get tired quick in oncoming, quarting or broaching waves because they just “push on” and have not learned to become part of their environment. During my days paddling around Puerto Rico it seemed almost always the waves were coming at my boat from a 2 o’clock position. Day by day they ranged from 3 feet to 10 feet or on occasion a bit more. Well, if you just try to paddling through it you’re going to burn out fast. The first thing I remember a friend telling me was to not paddle “up hill”. Of course to do that efficiently you have to read the waves and meter your paddle strokes. In time you learn to accelerate down the back side of the wave, then hold your stroke as you go up the next wave, then paddle again on top of the wave and then down the backside. By doing this you do not waste energy trying to climb mountains.

Slalom Sea Kayaking

Well, in the last couple years I’ve paddled a lot with people much more skilled than I am. But I’m a pretty strong paddler. Still I would get burned out while they just smiled and raced forward. They used waves and gravity to move the boat, not muscle. So how did that work? Well, I had a lot of time to practice my Slalom Sea Kayaking skills (as I call them). As I said, most of the time around the island it seemed the waves would come at us from a 2′oclock position. If you just paddle like normal, you are going to fry quickly. Well, I’d had people tell me they use those waves, but I did not really understand. But in time I got it.

With the right timig you can get energy of both the FRONT and the back of the wave. When the wave comes in at you of course you were taught to edge into the wave. Yeah, this give you a stronger, more balanced position on the wave. Yet with a bit of practice you can let the wave pick you to it’s top and lean down the wave while moving across it’s face. Putting your weight down the wave lets gravity give you a bit of speed as you basically surf down across the wave. Then when you feel that you are not going to get anymore energy from the wave you drop over the top and edge the other way allowing the boat to accelerate down the back of the wave. Going down the back you can paddle as well to gain more speed. It takes time to get this right and read the rythem of the water. As you get “in the zone” you start seeing paths in the water. You look for the “low spot” and go to it to gain as much energy as you can going “down”. You see small paths across the top of big rollers that will lead your though the wave into the next trough. Sometimes I could just “Slalom” through the waves for quite some distance with minimal paddle strokes, used just to adjust angles, draw over crests, or pick up speed down the back of a wave. Before I knew it I was flying while all the while not really using much energy. And that was going INTO oncoming conditions.

Rough Stuff

Big waves can be scary!!!! Of course the problem is with how moving water acts as it runs into shallow areas or moves around and over coral and rocks, or when it hits the beach or a cliff. One day on the CTA trip we cut inside of some big rocks through a narrow pass to get into a big bay. The thing was, in this narrow pass the water was squirrelly. The waves were being built up by the quickly rising bottom. They wrapped around a big rock causing crossing flows. Waves rose and crashed over jagged tables of rock that sat just below the surface and were only exposed in the troughs of the waves. Each wave that landed on that table exploded into turbulence and mist. Along the shore boulders rose out of the water and created more bouncy, active water. It looked, like a washing machine. Well, if you are silly enough to go through, instead of going around, you better hold back and read the water. I sat back for bit until I could see a path. I could see how I could use waves wrapping around my side of the first big “island” to push me into an eddy behind the second flat table that was breaking the waves. Right there was a small but visible calm. From there you could jump out and go with the waves on the other side that would carry you right into the bay. However. . . If you went to close to land, the waves built up again and smashed into the boulders on the shore. If you stayed to far out you would be picked up by 12 footers and get tossed onto the table. You had to follow the path written in the carnage. In addition also needed to have a “high gear” to jump quickly from the big waves into the eddy before letting them push you into the rocky shore. Lastly you had to commit to your choice. For a short time, you could not just “change your mind”. Nope, you’re in now, no turning back. In active water you observe, make a choice, commit and do it. But in the end, if you don’t know what you are doing, you just stay the hell out of there and run outside.

Run Outside

It’s natural when you are new to the sport to want to stay close to shore. It’s pretty normal to feel the urge in conditions to get closer to shore. But as I mentioned above, the water can get freaky as it begins to be effected by land forms near shore. Suddenly waves rise over rocks that you may not see, they bounce off cliffs, build into breaking surf on the shallow shores. Currents form around and between landforms. The water just gets as we like to call it, “active”. Well, if the water is getting big, it’s getting more active near shore as well. During CTA there were often times when we had to reject that urge to run closer to shore. If the waves got bigger we had to read ahead and often decide to get further off shore. Yeah, it is a bit intimidating to be so far off shore, but when you get out there you realize the water calms down and becomes more predictable. Sometimes, you have to run outside.

Experience is worth a thousand classes. If you really want to learn solid boat control, the only way to really do it is to just get out there. Just don’t push too far beyond your capabilities. Sea kayaking in freaky water is fun, but it’s also bloody dangerous.