BCU 3 Star Sea Kayak Assessment

Today was the big day. After all that training and paddling I moved on to the assessment to see if I was able to paddle at a 3 star sea kayak level. Today was actually fairly calm compared to the last two days. We actually had to go out of our way to find conditions that would meet with the minimum requirements. We ended up doing a lot of rock gardens. In Maine, with the high tidal difference, there didn't really seem to be many beaches and more there were rocky outcroppings and cliff faces. With the ocean swells we worked our way in as close to the rocky walls as possible even moving through some of the rocky gaps as the swells would allow. It was quite a bit of fun. I had never had a chance to go rock gardening as there are none down here that I am aware of. With the swells moving in, the boats would get pushed close to the rocks and as the swell receded, we would move away. This turned out to be an excellent time to really work on doing hanging draws. A hanging draw is a static stroke taken to help move the kayak sideways while on the move. It really is a very cool stroke when mastered. I feel I have mastered it both in forward and reverse.

Today I was the only girl moving forward into the assessment. We were a group of 6 people with 3 of us having gone through the training together. It was nice to move into the assessment as a group and know we were in it together. For the most part we all did well. At one point, just to make things more challenging, I was asked to trade boats with someone who also had a Force 4. The catch was we were not allowed to get wet. Since the other guy was a little shaky on his skills, I ended up taking over. I grabbed another kayaker to help and we rafted up creating a nice stable platform allowing me to get out of my boat and him to get in before I crawled over all three boats and hopped into his. It was a pretty cool feat to do on a dynamic surface. His outfitting was a little odd with a higher seat. A few minutes later we traded back in a similar manner on as part of a tow.

Towards the end of the day, we were goofing off and playing in the rock gardens again. I went through a small gap in the rocks with no problems. The next guy through also had no problems. When I turned around to go back, the water lifted me up, turned me then drained out leaving my bow and stern up on the rocks while I was hanging head down in the water. I ended up having to exit the boat and came up laughing. I had just been part of a controlled rescue a few minutes ago and had just warmed up then here I was back in the water trying to push my boat off the rocks for another rescue. Everyone thought it was funny too, I am just sad that no one managed to get a picture.

After all was done, we got back to Bar Harbor safely and exhausted. We opted to get our assessment as a group and 5 of us passed. We later found out that the one guy who didn't pass, had known ahead of time that he likely wouldn't and wanted to come for the training and practice. He realized after seeing us paddle that he really did need more work to get up to that skill level. The rest of us went back to the symposium site and partied a bit to celebrate. My individual comments were that I needed to pay more attention to surroundings when doing rescues (or at least designate a looker), and try to keep myself tucked in more to prevent shoulder injuries. The one piece of praise I received which was the same as yesterday was that my finesse strokes are beautiful and well done, but the strength strokes require a bit more work with timing.

I ended up going out for supper that night with a bunch of the instructors who were still in town one more night. I knew two of the instructors from before, Alison Sigethy and Kevin Black, and had kayaked with Russell Farrow at the Mid-Atlantic Kayak Festival as well as saw his talk both at MAKF and ECCKF in the spring so it was cool to actually talk with him. I hadn't met Any Sparks before but he was pretty cool to kayak with and I feel I learned a lot with him over the two day training. The people who run the Carpe Diem Symposium, Mel and Mark, are great people and I hope I can get out there again next time. They let me shower in the bunkhouse. Nothing like a hot shower to feel human again. I hate campgrounds that have coin-operated showers.

BCU 3 Star Training, Day 2

After a very intense day one training I think we were all expecting another heavy day of training. Today wasn't nearly as intense but we did still go over a lot of drills. This time we were able to focus a little more on navigation as we ran into some fog that lingered into the late morning. Navigation is an interesting challenge on the water.

First, it is hard to plan a bearing and course on the fly because looking down onto a map is a really great way to wind up sea sick and sometimes even dizzy. There are devices, like the Nav-aid that are supposed to make it easier to get a bearing quickly so as to spend less time looking down. I don't have one. I think some preplanning and rafting of boats together went a long way to getting a bearing quickly and relatively accurately. Having the chart folded out to show the interested areas also helps.

Second, once we managed to plan out our route (straight line across a channel), we found that we hadn't taken the current into account. Our destination was the lower point of a small island. In order to make sure we didn't miss the island altogether, we aimed for the center of the island. This makes it easier to correctly reach our destination. The problem was we didn't account for the current in the channel, which was actually moving quite quickly and we ended up getting pushed quite badly. If the fog had been thicker, we would not have seen the island materializing in front of us. With the current in the channel, it would have been quite possible for us to be pushed right past the other end of the island. As it was, the fog was lifting as we made our way across the channel and I could see how skewed our course had become. We corrected on the fly as we could start to see where we were going.

Lunch was a much more relaxing affair, at first. We landed on a small fishing island and enjoyed a nice lunch. We did have some fun trying to land on the extra high docks. The instructor chose the slightly lower dock and I opted to go that route too. I had some trouble levering myself up off the boat to a standing position. My knees just didn't seem to have enough strength to get me up from a seated position. Once I managed to get my butt up onto my back deck I had an easier time of it. We basically got out, walked the boats to the other side then hopped back in. The lunch spot was a rocky beach and nicely enough a picnic table. We did have to determine our precise coordinates for an "emergency" call. Our coordinates right down to the decimal seconds. Luckily we had a good chart to read off of. And at least one person who knew were to find the decimal second readings.

This day seemed to focus more on paddling as a whole, we did work on some skills and some rescues but I feel like we actually went somewhere today rather then paddling in small circles. The small circles were nice yesterday and I like the fact that each day was entirely different while still covering about the same material. I'm just glad I didn't have to tow as the tows were for long distances not quick little tows. Although that is likely a great way to get in shape.

BCU 3 Star Training, Day 1

I wasn't sure what to expect on my first day of training for the 3 Star Sea Kayak Award. I had read that conditions needed to be at about 10-15 knots of wind, 3-5 foot seas and at least a couple of knots of current. So in my mind, I was picturing big waves, big winds AND big current. My imagination got the better of me and worked me up into a worried state. Turns out it should be at least one of those conditions and not necessarily all those conditions. Once out on the water, I realized the conditions really were not so bad. In fact I didn't think them bad at all, which is a good thing. This means I was ready for this type of water and comfortable with it. I did figure out I wasn't in very good shape in spite of all the whitewater paddling I have been doing. Time to start working on attaining so get in shape.

I already have a membership for my whitewater L3 certification and an L3 personal achievement award through the ACA, the American Canoe Association. I wasn't sure why I wanted to get another membership and personal achievement award in the BCU system (British Canoe Union). After looking at the levels of the two systems, I realized that there are advantages to training in both systems. The ACA L3 is not quite equivalent to the 3 Star. In fact the 3 Star is a bit of a step up and is a great stepping stone in bettering myself. This way it looks like I can take smaller steps and bounce between the two systems. I had not taken any ACA training with my L3 assessment, rather I got the 3 Star training but with no conditions. My understanding is that the BCU system is focusing on the journey and leadership where the ACA system focuses on the skills to do the trip.

We started out with a foggy and overcast day. Temperatures were not too bad but the water was definitely on the colder side of things. I had chosen to wear my light-weight wool thermals over my mid-weight wool thermals. I had an extra top layer just in case. We started off with a very long and winding back paddle through the ships and various ship buoys littering the harbor. I thought my arms were going to fall off. I don't think I have ever paddled that far backwards before, ever! Definitely worked out some muscles. We moved on through the morning, paddling around to the various small islands, landing on one and "saving" our paddle from hypothermia. Of course it is a good idea to save someone above the high water line. I didn't realize we didn't have to actually open up the space blanket, those things are like a can of worms. Once I got it out of the bag, it expanded beyond belief. I ended up shoving it into my dry bag to fold up later.

We had a working lunch. There were so many things to go over from navigation, to tides, then strokes and concepts. We worked on some navigation and tide work over lunch as time seemed to be in short supply. After lunch we took some time to surf the wave that forms over the little rock shelf. This was lots of fun. I hadn't had a chance to surf in quite a while. I had some control over my boat but I could still tell the wave was pushing me along to surfer's left. Not a good place to be as it was shallow there. One guy managed to do a bow stall with his 18 foot sea kayak, quite impressive. We also had a bit of a traffic jam, one boat plowing over another.

In the afternoon we worked on rescues and boat repair. I found out that my light-weight wool thermals were not going to keep me warm for prolonged sitting or immersion. Good thing for the borrowed dry suit but damn it was cold. Various rescues then on to boat repair. My partner for the training got out of his boat and sat on my deck while we pulled his boat up between us and tried to "repair" it. We found that the Gorilla Tape he had didn't stick to it, neither did the Hippo Tape I had. I found out afterwards that the Hippo Tape really needs to be applied to a dry surface. I might have to try it again some other time. In the meantime, we found out that Duct Tape seemed to be the winner. Window flashing is also supposed to be a great item which I have seen in use before and really should go out and buy.

We were supposed to be on the water until about 4:30. Our trainer asked if we were okay with staying out later. For extra training we were happy to but we were getting tired. I finally asked if this was a two day class or if I was mistaken. He thought I meant is this normally a two day class to which his response was that this could take up to six months in England. I restated that I meant this weekend, and after a show of (tired) hands, we headed back. He was a little apologetic yet happy to keep working on us tomorrow. So we headed back exhausted but feeling good. Almost all of us were signed up for the class tomorrow and only a small few were signed for the assessment on the Monday.