Archive for May, 2008
talk to the hand
May 26th, 2008 | 
Author: 
What do you do when you see that blogger guy coming??
Well I’ve just arrived back in Wisconsin and am toasted in more ways than one after a great weekend at the 2008 WMCKA kayak symposium. Once I get settled in I’ll share some photos and maybe some fun things you can do with YOUR hands. . (and various other body parts). Oh and the face behind the hand is…
Posted in 
the waiting
insert tom petty lyrics here. . .
It’s amazing how posh a ferry terminal really is. Sure we are used to it these days, but if you step back it’s really amazing that I can get online and grab a cappuccino while I wait for the Lake Express which is still about a half hour out. Then again, maybe I’m just thrilled by the smallest of things.
The drive over to Milwaukee was pretty uneventful other than the few moments where I took a wrong turn and had to re-navigate my way back onto the highway in Downtown Milwaukee. For a big city it’s not all that complicated to navigate. Downtown most of the freeways are in the air, so you just find the one that you’re looking for and head in that direction until you find a ramp. Easy as punch.
This morning Gryphon said the Jeep looks wimpy now without the kayak racks on the top. Yeah, he’s probably right. Hmmmm, 40 minutes? Time seems to be slipping backwards. . .
packed
It’s just as you would expect it. First a client has their website hacked, then another calls and needed a long, unexpected lesson in adding pictures to their website. That runs me right up to the moment I have to take an hour and a half drive to a photo job. After taking photos of two vacation homes I took another run to visit a farm house. When I got there I realized I should take the time then and there to photograph it as well. So I made it home by 5pm. Finally I had the chance to pack for the trip to Michigan in the morning. For the first time, I’ll be driving to a symposium WITHOUT a kayak on the roof! Oh man. Well, things are looking up however. . . after glancing at my class schedual I realized I never have a class before 10:30 in the morning. . . ah, the hangover shift!!
The summer trail
Memories are drifting like the snow
So close the door lightly when you go
-richard thompson
It’s time again to hit the summer trail. On Friday I’ll make the almost annual migration over to Milwaukee to catch the Lake Express Ferry for the 2 hour jaunt across the 80 miles or so of open water to the high sandy cliffs of the Michigan shore. Once off the ferry it’s just a short drive up to Big Blue Lake which is the location of the 2008 West Michigan Kayak Symposium. WMCKA is the first big gathering of the Midwest’s paddling season.
I’m really looking forward to seeing Keith and Laurie and the many friends and acquaintances I’ve made over the last few years. Leon Sommé and Shawna Franklin with be there as well. There are no better paddlers out there that you can learn the art of coaching from. When I arrive I’ll stake out my spot along the tree lined camping area and shake what’s left of the Puerto Rican sand out of my tent and wander the camp for a bit to catch up with all the friendly faces.
This is going to be an odd year I think. I’m coming into this season feeling a bit subdued, sort of mailing it in. Something I have to get a grip on and shake off. As fate would have it, of all the symposiums out there each year, WMCKA is probably the perfect place shake off this bloody malaise.
Edgy
John Martin aka Anne Elk demonstrates how a kayak is thick in the middle and thin on both ends
Rules are great things when they work. However there are times when rules are used as ways to cover up for distraction or lack of experience. In sea kayaking there are some rules that linger out there for no other reason than there are some folks who just don’t paddle very often but read a lot and love to debate what they’ve read. Certainly if they would just go out and spend more time on the water many of these rules they debate would become clear. Theory is a great place to start but it is certainly no substitute for experience. Just ask William Blake.
One of technique that seems to get plenty of debate is “edging”. The general idea is that by leaning or edging your kayak, more of the hull will come out of the water making it easier to turn. Why? Well again simply put, sea kayaks are fat in the middle and thin on the ends (as in the Brontosaurus theory on Monty Python). When the boat leans over more of those thin bits come out of the water. Where the debate comes in when you talk about which way to lean the boat.
I should jump in here and talk for a moment about the two ways we accomplish the task of leaning the kayak. One way is obvious. We lean over. In sea kayaking “leaning” means we bring our whole body over. Visualize your whole body being inflexible. As you tip to one side or the other your kayak will tip with you, or leans. The other way we lean the boat is called “edging”. When we edge the boat we are flexible at the hip. This way our upper body stays vertical to the water and only our lower body (the bit inside the boat) leans. In either case the boat itself leans over, the difference is in what our upper body is doing.
One of the most frustrating parts of my initial coach training was learning to demonstrate sweeps or to put it simply, to turn the kayak. The idea behind the demonstration being that you use your paddle to turn the kayak clockwise or counter clockwise in a complete circle while avoiding moving forward or backward. It’s not all that complicated really. IF you do it right. Where things get interesting is when you begin to add that second element. . . the lean. . . or edge if you like! The first trick is to remember that leaning and edging are often counter intuitive. In most instances you edge or lean out of a turn in a sea kayak. Just the opposite of what you would do on a bicycle. Make sense? However that “rule” comes with provisos. Which takes me back to that silly sweep demonstration.
When I was learning to demonstrate turning a kayak on a dime I would continually lean out of the turn. My model would always start out just fine but then I would find myself getting shaky and out of balance. Then of course I’d get told I needed to clean it up and feel like a hopeless git for the rest of the day. No matter what I did from then on I always ran into the same problem. I’d start out well, then get out of balance. On and on it went. It was not until I was giving this sad exhibition to a coach in the middle of the triangle off the coast of Tybee Island, Georgia, that I was finally asked, “What the hell are you doing???”! Good question! What the hell was I doing??
The problem was seeing the big picture while being blind to its separate parts. Conceptually it made sense. Spin your kayak to the left by leaning right. Simple. Yet in practice it never worked. When I started out using a forward sweep all would be fine. I’m leaning right and the bow goes left, however the second half was where it all fell apart. I would turn my body to the opposite side, reach back and continue the turn with a reverse sweep. What was missed when I was taught the reverse sweep bit was that this was a mirror image of the forward sweep, a separate move in an opposite direction. Thus, I had to lean the other way! Call this a memory point, “reverse sweep; reverse everything”. While these two moves; the forward sweep and reverse sweep are together turning the boat in one direction, individually each move is a mirror opposite of the other. The lean changes as well.
It’s hard to tell what was going on when I was first learning to demonstrate sweeps. Most likely the coach was distracted and just missed the lean. Still in recognizing my balance problems it should have hinted to something more in the technique going wrong. You can imagine that these days a good wobble sets off alarm bells when I’m watching someone as they learn their sweeps. It’s not always the lean but it’s worth checking. That’s the thing with rules. In those moments when we are distracted or out of focus our mouths can start quoting rules without even thinking about it. They tend to get hardwired. We have to keep in mind that often a rule is really a guide line and that each situation or student is different. A rule applied in the wrong situation can sometimes do more harm than good.
Wisconsin Dells
The Wisconsin Dells is often described as a place of amazing natural beauty and wonder. Yet like so many other “wonder spots” that wear that label “natural beauty” , the label often seems more like an old price tag someone forgot to peel off. Remnants of that natural Wisconsin Dells are certainly still there. You’ll find them hidden in gullies between water parks or hinted at in sandstone outcrops jutting over a mini-golf course. But most of what first drew visitors to “the dells” has long been blasted, flattened and paved in the never ending search for wealth. What remains for the nature lover is tucked in along the banks of the Wisconsin River. Just mind the tour boats.
Yesterday we took a large group of paddlers out to explore the upper section of Wisconsin Dells. The river is designated by upper and lower depending on what side of the hydroelectric dam you happen to be on. The upper section of the river is most famous for its large sandstone rock formations and the many deep finger like canyons that branch out on either side. The now flooded canyons are filled with water which at times reaches a depth of over 80 feet.
From a backwater launch we paddled out into the main channel and worked our way against the flow. The slow but powerful current is such that one would hardly notice its existence other than at the end of the day you realize you feel as if you’d paddled much further than you actually had. Along the way we would dip into small dark crevasses covered in pine needles and new ferns laid out under a ceiling of White Pine and Hemlock. It’s not unique to find bits of snow and ice in these deep fingers that will linger into June. This year however, the snow seems to have all melted away.
We continued north toward a more open section of water, one I was told was sporting a strong 2 foot chop the day before due to stiff winds racing a bit out of sync with the north to south path of the river. On this day the wind was did not seem to bad from our position deep with the high cliffs and pine. Still from my position as sweep my paranoid mind noticed a pit of flicker on the horizon line that stood out against the background of blue-grey sky and the foreground of ripped flow. I traded positions with the other guide so as to get a quick look.
I’ve found over time that I’m often a more paranoid paddler than most. A weather forecast, a cloud bank a sudden cold wind will set my alarm bells off. Not in that “Emergency!!” sense but in more of a niggling background tingle. At least for my own personal comfort I need to look those things in the eye and assure myself that it’s either paranoia or reality. Thus my run to the front of the line.
I joined the front boats just in time to meet a tour boat coming around a corner. I was aware that the little wake it would create may not bother me, but certainly could cause a potential problem for the least skilled among us. I could also see that the water was becoming a bit more lumpy but still it was hard to get a sense of it beyond the cliffs. I entered into some general chatter about how I would deal with boat wakes when I was first paddling. How if I were really unsure I would just point my nose into the wake. We paddled on.
As the boat passed and the wake rolled in I paddled out to catch the larger waves for a bit of a splash as the rest of the group plunged bravely forward. Everyone was doing just fine. At the same time we had paddled out from the protection of the eastern ridge. The wake of the tour boat blended into the higher waves of the unprotected water in one continuous experience. We had entered open water chop which was intensified as it reflected off the western wall causing a nice bounce that reached its pinnacle right under our little troop. Just for effect the sun slipped behind thick clouds causing the temerature to drop and the water to darken.
What are you imagining here? 3 foots, 4 feet or more? Nothing near. Each of us would imagine a wave that would cause tension relative to our skill level of course. In reality the wind was brisk but not screaming and the waves reaching maybe 1.5 feet at times were minor splashy fun to paddlers with some experience. However to paddlers out on their first “real” outing this would be a potential disaster. This was a beginner level group. When used to flat calm conditions these “monster” waves suddenly coming out of nowhere can be really scary!
I’ve found that most often the way to temper the mood of a group testing their boundaries a bit is to chatter. If you keep the group interacting they most often seem to blow right through a tense spot before they know what happened. So with some giggles and silly conversations we paddled on through the chop and worked our way a short quarter mile into a protected spot for lunch. Everyone was a bit chilled and wound up, but obviously proud of themselves for their accomplishment.
In the background of any small guided day trip there is of course an undercurrent of organization. The coaches or guides often meet up here and there both on and off the water for little updates and decision making. Before we went back out we talked over the weather and noted the wind was still picking up. We noted the skills of our group and put together a plan to get them back around the corner through the chop and back into the protected calm. I went forward again to hang with some of our newest kayakers and my partner guided the canoes which tend to give their paddlers more difficulties in such conditions.
For the next 10 minutes or so we rode a mostly following current back into the canyons. My biggest concern was that some paddlers would struggle to get around that first corner against the oncoming wind, however everyone made it easily. The occasional wide eyes would appear as the waves changed from an oncoming, to broaching angle. Still they all moved forward with determination and were soon back into the flat water where we waited for the canoe group to catch us up.
Once gathered and back into calm quiet conditions the sun came back out from under the clouds. (Isn’t that always the way??). We continued south and on through the fabled narrows. Once the terror of loggers, the narrows is a spot where the whole of the Wisconsin river is crushed into a 58 foot wide area, now some 90 feet deep. Even today this section of the river can hit class 3 conditions with a strong wave train and 4 foot drops. On this day however the passage was flat and only the accelerated current hinted to the constricted condition of the water.
Through the narrows we landed on a nearby beach to organize the last part of the day. Most were excited to spend another hour or so on the water while others were ready to call it a day. From here we parted ways. I escorted the early group back to the launching area while the rest went out to see what they could see further down the river.
change in the weather
I think there’s a change in the weather, I
hope good weather is here to stay,
I hope it’s a change for the better and
it will brighten up my day.
- kinks
Today we took a group of beginner level paddlers out on the “upper Dells” section of the Wisconsin river. As we all know, weather can change quickly. One minute the water can be dead calm and the next it can get a bit, well, lumpy. These little changes can be great opportunities for new paddlers to push their boundaries. In this case we made a little move from one protected area to another with just a bit of wind and chop in the middle to make things exciting.
