Practice Day/Play Day
Seventeen boats and paddlers met for an 0900 launch from Channel Islands Harbor en route to the Pond. It is getting to be a regular play group with Peter O; John Ernst, John P, Bill and his newly built absolutely gorgeous redwood strip boat, Harry from down south, Patrick, Steve H, George, Rick, Jake, Mike and Lorene, me and some names I forgot (mea culpa). Amongst the attendees was Wayne Horodowich of UC Santa Barbara and the University of Sea Kayaking. The water was flat and cool, the sun was shining. I saw a lot of wet people today as people got involved in skill development. Some of us worked with newer paddlers on their roll but it took the patient techniques of Wayne to finish the job. Congratulations to Steve for 4, count 'em, 4 complete rolls. A definite improvement on his previous mastery of the 1/2 roll and exit! Mike and Lorene both did paddle float rolls.

Some of us worked with paddle floats, some worked on landings and launchings. Jake amazed us with his ability to stand up in his kayak and paddle it like a gondola. All of us did something new or worked on problem areas with great success. Afterwards we rewarded ourselves at Big Daddy-O's with the best artery clogging food around.

My opinion: After the initial learning of basic paddling skills and developing the stamina to stay in the boat for hours at a time the fun of paddling is learning and developing skills and exploring new areas along the coast or re-exploring more familiar areas with new skills that allow one to safely paddle in close to visit the caves and run the overflows and such. Days like today not only develop skills but also they develop friendships and camaraderie that make life in general just a little better. Better is good!

Another great day on the water. But, then again, any day on the water beats a good day at...

    Mike Brown

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Submitted on August 03, 2003