Canyoo Canoe me Down the River...

My first attempt at the 2 Star badge fell foul of the mandatory 'paddling a canoe' element of the test and for me remained a stumbling block for the better part of two years. When I first started paddling i never had any intention of getting into a canoe but the BCU deemed that it was a mandatory requirement to be able to handle that side of paddling and be a more er...rounded paddler, if you want their approbation. I'm not even sure I know why I went in for the 2 Star award, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

I went into the club's course with all of 150 miles experience of paddling a kayak and absolutely nil in a canoe. The one star introductory course had been little else but a shoe-in and I wasn't expecting a great deal of trouble from this. At any rate I was confident that I would 'pick-up' the necessary skills during the one day's instruction that constituted the course well enough to cope with the assessment on the following day... After all, how difficult could it be? There were only two others with me on the course and I had a couple of hours intro to canoes in the weeks beforehand as a sop to my inexperience which mostly involved paddling a canoe two-up in figures of eight. I was 'lucky' enough to be teamed up with the the only other candidate, who it transpired, didn't regard team work as any sort of a necessity in the functioning of a canoe. I soon found that while I might be applying myself to keeping on a straight heading with rudimentary 'J' strokes, he seemed to think that that would be a good time to explore the effectiveness of sweep or draw strokes. After an hour of these different exercises at opposite ends of the boat that made the whole exercise pointless, I tried a friendly suggestion that it might be a good idea to 'get it together'. This suggestion only solicited at first a Gallic shrug and later, a hissy fit. Co-operation there wasn't going to be.

What I was also lacking was the experience of any solo practice in canoes at all. Which was a pity because without the disturbing influence in the front seat I might just have got some sort of handle on how the bloody thing worked. This probably came about because the club only possessed two suitable canoes for the three of us. Of course, Sod's law ensured that I was again teamed with my previous unhelpful partner during the course itself, and he just continued to do his own thing up front. When it came to it the assessment was a nightmare. Completely unexpected from left field came the request to paddle the damn thing solo. Now I defy anyone who has a total of about two hours in a canoe and none going solo, to show any real kind of expertise on an open river in breezy conditions while trying to navigate one of these things by yourself. I knew the fail was coming after my second inadvertent 360 degree turn initiated by a gusting wind and finally being asked to resume two up paddling before the task had been successfully completed.

Just to compound the issue I made a hash of backing out of a confined space in the kayak. That was something that I had practiced and done competently a dozen times before. This time I needed to put in a support stroke, which as it happens was a very good one, one that on any other day I would have been pleased with under other circumstances, but not in the middle of a reverse paddling test. At the finish, even though I knew that I had screwed it up, it was still like a knife in the heart as I was taken quietly to one side and pronounced '...not up to two star standard yet'. Those words burned into my soul and I didn't have anyone to blame but myself. Just to turn the knife in the wound both the other candidates were deemed to be up to scratch and both were trying not too hard to hide their sniggers as we wound up an altogether unpleasant experience.

The whole thing left me with a sour taste in the mouth and a dislike of canoes in general. I didn't take up the suggested option of going off and practicing by myself and taking a retest a few weeks later as was recommended. After all, what skill did I have to practice? I had barely got a clue what I was supposed to be doing in the boat, the J stroke remained as much of a mystery as before and trimming the boat in windy conditions was just a black art.  The only question remaining was: did I want to make a fool of myself again? The answer to that was a positive 'No'.

So two years later.... I can laugh about it... a bit.