A summary of the last couple of days, as it relates to kayaking (mostly because there isn’t much that isn’t related to kayaking in the last couple of days).
After my record time in the race on Wednesday, Dan suggested that instead of doing the last of our private lessons, I instead start coming out to the “B Team” evenings. So that’s what I did on Thursday. The “B team” consists of people who are finishing the Wednesday night race in the 23 to 27 minute range. So we paddled around in a group or split into two groups and did some drills while Dan went between us and offered suggestions for improving our technique. Or at least he did for everybody else – for most of the evening it was “Bill, you need to rotate your shoulders more, Jason, slow down your hands, Paul, you’re doing fantastic, …” I’d gone paddling on Monday and something had just “clicked”, and suddenly I found torso rotation and forward arm extension working perfectly, and Wednesday night seemed to confirm it, but this just confirmed it – my stroke felt great, and Dan was saying it was great. Cool. The only downside was that with the greater torso rotation, my pfd was rubbing on my back, and towards the end of the evening I took it off and stowed it.
This morning Vicki and I did a two car shuttle between Elison Park and Baycreek. I knew the creek is very shallow, so again I stowed my pfd in the hatch and paddled in my “Baycreek Racing” shirt. Even moving slowly, I was working on getting good torso rotation and good forward extension with my upper arm. I think I’m still bringing my lower hand too far back. I’ve got to work on that.
It was a great morning on the creek. It wasn’t too hot yet, and the wildlife was out in force. The kingfishers shepherded us down the creek, while sanguine ducks sat in the shallow water watching us go by without the slightest reaction. Some dogs were enjoying the dog park, and some novice kayakers were blundering through the weir. We saw four ducks climbing up a tree branch that was sticking out of the water and then diving down into the water, and turtles disguising themselves in the elodea.
After we got home, I worked on my kayak building project for the first time in nearly a month. I cleaned out the crud on the inside of the hull, both the old glue from the temporary frames and glue drips and other rough spots. Then I put a fillet of epoxy and wood flour in the bow and stern, reinforced the butt seam in the keel panels, and painted a saturation coat on the entire hull. Unfortunately my paint roller doesn’t roll any more, so I ended up doing the whole thing with a tiny paint brush.
That means that tomorrow I have to glass the inside of the hull, which is something I’m not looking forward to. Remembering back 25+ years ago when I built my canoe, doing the inside was the most frustrating part of the whole thing. And unlike this one, the canoe didn’t have hard chines that needed to have fibreglas adhere to the insides of. Fore warned is fore armed, I guess.
Yes, it was a good paddle.