On the Other Hand...

...there are days when it's probably better to have stayed in bed.

For me the Bank Holiday weekend started on the Friday evening with the last of the canoe sessions. I'd managed to get to three out of the four of the sessions and hadn't really progressed very far with them. My handling of the things were, and still are, erratic and none of us had got very much further than a few circuits of a figure-of-eight course. Friday night's session concentrated mainly on rescue and recovery.

I got on reasonably well with that and we progressed through self rescue, righting and re-entering after a capsize, and assisting a capsized crew to get back into their canoe. It was hard work but quite rewarding when it went well. I quite surprised myself by carrying out my rescue quite well. So, it was with some confidence that I entered into the start of the two-star course the following Saturday morning with two others.

We started off with kayak skills and technique going through all the points of efficient paddling which I've been practicing for the last twelve months, which again went well at least for the short duration that we carried on. I know that my technique must leave a lot to be desired as I'm just not very fast, but it didn't receive any real, adverse comment so I assume that it was at least adequate.

Where it all started to go wrong was on the backward paddling exercise. Ideally when you're reversing you should take the odd look backwards to see where you're going and keep in a straight line. I was heading steadily backwards and had managed the requisite look over my shoulder on every third stroke, but had completely missed the mooring chain that tethered a houseboat to the river bed. Of course, I fouled it, and was pitched into the water alongside the boat for my trouble. Luckily there was a clear stretch of jetty and I was able to get myself, kayak and paddle out of the water and drained in fairly short order, with only my pride damaged. Luckily the day was warm and the Sun strong enough to keep warm and I steadily dried out. One of the others threw himself into the water a short time later while paddling forward, possibly he did it in sympathy and to make me feel better... or possibly not.

So the day progressed and around lunchtime we transferred into the canoes. The fact was that none of us were very good with paddling canoes, especially with a steady wind which sprang up meant that we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get a reasonable standard while untangling ourselves from the bushes and boat moorings that surrounded us. The other two seemed to be able to cope slightly better than me but were forever getting in the way so that I seemed to be forever taking avoiding action rather than concentrating on getting the stroke right. As the afternoon wore on the whole bloody thing became more and more frustrating and it was almost a relief to go onto the capsize drills. These of course were the same as the ones that I’d been doing the previous evening, plus a reprise of the kayak drills we had learned on the one-star course, so for me this part went quite well. Thoroughly saturated we finally called it a day at 4pm.

Sunday, early morning, another fine warm day, but straight back in the canoes. My main problem was not being able to get to grips with the ‘J’ stroke. I found that I could keep the canoe running straight with an abortive version of my own, but it wasn’t the correct stroke. Unfortunately the course requires you to master the stroke and plough a straight furrow despite the now gusting wind which would swing the canoe in any direction it pleased. Despite my best efforts I just could not get the thing to work when handling the canoe solo. In the late morning we had set off on a two mile excursion swapping places and partners at intervals. On the return journey I had to take my turn paddling solo and I made a real hash of keeping a straight course. But by now I had just about had enough of canoes and felt even less like trying than I did at the start. I knew that it was all over when I was transferred back to the pairs canoe early.

In the afternoon we finally got back to kayaking with a second excursion upstream which took in the backwaters of a couple of islands, then a quick dash back to the clubhouse. As there was a lot of river traffic on the bank holiday we had to contend with quite a bit of turbulent water and it was a bit hair-raising especially on the outbound leg, but the return was fast with the wind behind us again. However, there was a little sting in the tail as we were pulled into a mooring to do one last test. That was to paddle into a limited space gap and back paddle out of it in a straight line. The first guy carried it out OK ish with a bit of meandering about and then it was my turn.

By this time I was cold, tired and hungry. After three days of fairly intensive exercise and seven cold water baths, this was about the last thing I needed, but I started off slow and described a perfectly straight line in and braked to a halt. Throwing it into reverse I went off balance, but incredibly pulled off a perfect low-brace support stroke to steady up, then backed out in a perfectly straight line. I have no idea if that wobble counted against me, I guess it probably did, but I was rather proud of it, I just don’t think it was quite the right time to start doing tricks in the middle of a test.

Needless to say I didn’t pass the two-star course as I‘m 'not up to two-star standard'. The feedback confirmed what I already knew, that I need more practice in a canoe to master it’s handling and that bloody ’J’ stroke. Also, apparently, I need more practice of backward paddling. On reflection, the irony is, that if, as I had expected, we had spent as much time on kayaking drills as we did trying to get to grips with canoes, which is a mode of transport I had little interest in when we started, and even less now, there probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem.

And so, we called it a day...