Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Kayaking in retrospect

Okay, so "Just wandering" (aka Jackie, Queen of Blogging) is telling me that I don't blog often enough.  Hey, I just blogged on Sunday.  Today is Tuesday.  I think that's pretty good.  

Anyway,  yeah...I meant to blog about kayaking....I went kayaking for the first time on Saturday.  For Jackie's brief version see: this link.  Here's my mine:

On Saturday, I went kayaking for the first time.  This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and Jackie, Queen of the Outdoors, was gracious enough to take me.  I promised Betsy I'd help her move, so we stayed local and kayaked around False Creek.  It was really fun.  We rented a 2-person kayak from a place on Grandville Island, and then set out in this thing that everyone reassured me was "really stable."  Ocean kayaks never capsize I was told, but nevertheless I was a bit freaked out for the first 4 minutes.  I just wanted to capsize just to get over my fear, but Jackie told me that that was not a good thing, but a rather annoying thing.  And then she pointed out the big boats.  So, I looked at the big boats and transfered my fear over to them.  That lasted about two minutes when I realized most of these boats weren't moving and that I should be more afraid of being able to sustain my paddling.  My upper body strength is rather sad, and Jackie kept on giving me tips:  Your elbows are too bent.  Try to keep your arms straight.  Stop hitting the boat.  She said this all from the back of the kayak, where the more experienced person steers and stuff.  The beginner is stuck in the front where I couldn't see her at all.  I found it hard to take her verbal directives and translate them into action.  Nerdy me, I got very excited whenever another kayak came up to us, and I'd stare at their stroke and try to model it.  Very friendly people, these other kayakers, and I think after an hour or so, I finally figured out a rhythm.  I think the key for me is to sit up straight. 

I didn't realize kayaks sat so low on the water.  It really is quite a humbling posture and gives you a whole different perspective on Vancouver.  Birds too we saw---we saw a lot of birds doing all sorts of things on the water.  I'd look out and see all these random long necks sticking out of water; it's kind of a funny sight.  Then I'd see birds running on the water, dancing on top of the water, diving into the water.  I almost felt this new kinship to birds.  Historically speaking, (that is, in my personal life history) I have never been a big fan of birds.  Particularly big birds who can't fly.  Ostriches and Emus scare me.  But you won't find too many of those in Vancouver.  Anyway, I think I have this new appreciation for birds. 

And then we say this little sea otter who stayed pretty close to us for a long time.  I think he was checking us out...and then he dove into the water and came out beside us and jumped over our kayak.  I'm not joking!  Actually, I really am joking....and I reiterate a story that Jackie tried to pass of as true to Sara and me when we were in Tofino a few weeks back.  She went on and on about it for a good 20-30 minutes.   O Hail, Jackie, Queen of Exaggerated Stories.  (We really did see a sea otter though.)

So, that was kayaking.  Quite fun, I'll have to do it again.

1 Comments:

Blogger Jackie Bolen said...

Nice update. I'm not really sure if I come out in a flattering light or not. Anyway, I think you should have told them about the killer whale too.

6:14 PM  

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