Weekend at Sea Kayak Georgia, April 3-4

If you're going to be in Georgia for something that ends on a Thursday, it would be silly not to stop by Sea Kayak Georgia and take a class over the weekend, right?  Well, actually that's probably what a friend of mine would call "vacation logic" (i.e., the logic may be suspect), but that's what I did.
 

SKG offers classes most weekends, and it turned out that this weekend, there was a BCU 3 Star training on Saturday and Sunday.  Perfect!  Ronnie was teaching it. 
 

3 Star trainings don't follow a set curriculum, and you can't assume that if you go to the training you're ready for the assessment.  The trainings are really just a chance to work with a coach on whatever he or she chooses to teach.  At another training I did with a different coach, we spent most of the time working on towing.
 

Since I arrived on Thursday afternoon, I had a couple of chances to chat with Ronnie before the class started on Saturday, and at one point we talked about Cumberland Island, which I had just returned from.  Ronnie said that once he had been leading a group across Cumberland Sound towards Fort Clinch, and after they landed a fisherman on shore called him over and said "See that great big shark out there?  It followed you guys all the way across."  Okay, right, processing that.  I decided I was quite happy that we didn't see any great big sharks on our trip, thank you very much.  Of course, later on I realized that none of us had been looking over our shoulders as we crossed...
 

On Saturday morning I met the other student in the class, a woman from Canada.  Siobhan and I were well matched in terms of skill level.  For the next two days, we worked our way through various skills, starting in calm water and then moving out.  It was a neap tide, so the conditions weren't as big as at the symposium last fall. 
 

Ronnie puts a big emphasis on skills, but not for the sake of the skill.  His focus is really owning your boat and paddle, so that you can move the boat exactly where you want to, rapidly and efficiently, no matter what the conditions.  Perfecting your technique is simply the means to that end.
 

After lunch on Little Tybee Island on Saturday, we were standing on the beach talking about towing. Suddenly Ronnie said "Is that guy out of his boat?"  We turned around and I couldn't see anything definitive, but there had been a guy surfing in a kayak and we couldn't see him anymore.  We decided to go out and check.  I got launched first and was in the lead (I think Ronnie was intentionally letting us handle the rescue).  Soon I could see that the guy was indeed out of his boat.  When I pulled up next to him, I could see that he had an old style surf kayak with no bulkheads and no flotation.  He was wearing a PFD, but no wet suit, and the water was about 58 degrees.  We were easily half a mile from shore, and he was trying to swim his boat full of water in.  He might have made it, but he might not.
 

Siobhan rafted up next to me and it took two of us to empty his boat out (we had to pull it across our decks and rock it, and it had no deck lines).  I think Ronnie was helping on Siobhan's other side.  We got the swimmer back in and, of course, as soon as his butt was in the seat he said "Okay, thanks, I'm good."  Not.  We stayed rafted up until he was sorted out with his spray skirt on, and then sent him on his way.  He made a bee line for shore.
 

It was a good example of paying attention that Ronnie even saw the guy in the water, and when we debriefed after the rescue, Ronnie had also been watching how close we were getting to the surf.  The offshore wind was blowing us out towards the breaking waves, and if we had gotten closer, he would have towed us back.  I hadn't even been paying attention to the surf line, so lots of lessons to learn on that one.
 

The rest of the weekend we worked on more skills – figure eights, towing, a bit of surfing.  Once after I capsized Ronnie asked "Nice roll, but what did you do before you rolled?"  I mumbled something, and Ronnie said "You had time to take a breath and set up for your roll;  why didn't you brace?"  Hmmm.  Good question.

At the end of the day on Sunday we did some out of boat work.  Between the week on Cumberland and the two days of classes catching up to me, and the cold-ish water (even with a wet suit) and being in swells that I wasn't used to, I was surprised at how quickly I tired.  I've never missed a re-enter and roll, and I missed three in a row.  Also muffed a cowboy rescue.  Oh, well.  That's why we practice, right?
 

All in all, we learned a lot.   Ronnie did a great job of teaching us where we were.   If only I could do that every weekend.