A THOUSAND CROSSINGS X

Dear Diary...
2 Star Kayaking Personal Skills Course 2
mardi 3 juin 2008

Day 2 of 2 star kayaking today.

Skills learnt: Eskimo's bow roll/rescue
TX Rescue
Low Brace Turn
High/low Support recovery
Peeing in Kallang

OK i m joking about the last skill. But yea, we did that. Maybe not all of us but at least me and Yu Cheng. HAHA.

Let's elaborate about the day's adventures.

After arriving at the dragon boat association, we loaded the kayaks onto the racks and pushed them to the launch off point. After launching off, we were introduced to the Eskimo bow rescue. This rescue involves the victim and 1 rescuer. The victim who has capsized, will wave his hands for help, without making a wet exit. The rescuer will approach the victim's kayak from the stern and allow his own kayak's bow to glide towards the middle of the victim's kayak's cockpit. The victim will den rest his hands onto the resucer's bow. He will rest his hands the way you would do CPR... Thereafter, using the trunk muscles, he will flip his boat over, before lifting his head from his rescuer's bow. This rescue, is truly easier done than said. :D it was really fun doing it over and over again. During the practice, Brandon's spectacles got lost somewhere... so goodbye. haha.

We den tried out the high/low support recovery. This technique simply means to use ur paddles to help urself to get into a upright position when u are about to capsize. Tried out a few successful recoveries. Then my final try, i capsized... I slapped my hull 3 times and waved my hands, hoping for someone to come so that i can execute a eskimo bow roll. However, no one came. I lifted my head out from the water, took a breath and slapped my hull another 3 times. Still, no one came. Desperate, i made a wet exit. When i emerged from the water, wei xuan's kayak slammed into mine. Nice timing guys, i could have died down there if i did not decide to do a wet exit. So due to their inefficiency, instead of an eskimo bow roll, we had to do a TX. More time needed, more effort needed. still, i made it back into my kayak..:D When i was in the water, i pee-ed too...

Next was lunch...

After lunch we set off again, Refined our 2 star skills. In the process of us practising, low wei jie form the other group capsized so i rushed to him. But it seemed like he could not wait and he made a wet exit. So i single-handedly did a TX rescue :D so proud of myself haha. Got him into his boat safe and sound. But when i was emptying his boat of water, my boat got filled with water.. :S bad bad.. So i did a capsize drill and Yu Cheng TX rescued me haha. You guys dunno how much of a hard time he had trying to empty my kayak of water, but still he did it. 3 cheers for yu cheng.. :D haha.

After the practice, we learnt and tried the low brace turn before returning to shore. Today's session was a lot more fruitful, adventurous and FUN compared to yesterday. we all got so addicted to capsizing, that i wanna capsize now... haha.

logging out...

-yong liang

ps, below are the pictures...