White Water Kayaking

Posted by Marci on Dec 2, 2010 in | 0 comments

“You ready to flip over,” my instructor asked as he stood in the water next to my tiny, blue kayak.

No, I thought. The idea of being under the water, inside a kayak that fit my body like a glove, and having to pull myself from the craft didn’t sound appealing. I liked being on top of the water. “You’re going to be right here if I can’t escape,” I asked for the third time.

“Knock on the side of the boat twice if you freak out,” he said.

I took a deep breath and flipped over. The cold water hit my face and I was happy to have the ugly nose plugs keeping the water from entering my sinuses. I bent forward, grabbed the handle on my spray skirt, yanked it off the rim of the boat, and pushed my way free. My head was above water in less than a second.

We dragged the boat to the side of the river to drain it. “Now I’m going to teach you a bow rescue so that you don’t have to pull the spray skirt,” he said.

We both climbed into the boats and I flipped myself over. I knocked the sides twice, and felt the nose of his kayak next to my hand. I grabbed on and pulled my head around to the bow of his boat, and then righted myself. This technique proved helpful in the coming days as I learned to cruise through rapids. Instead, of swimming each time I was knocked over by a wave, my instructor rescued me while still in the boat.

For five days, we kayaked through class II rapids on the Trinity River in Northern California. Each day, we splashed through waves, learned eddy turns to get in and out of rapids, and practiced rolling the kayak to an upright position. I had always loved rivers and had rafted numerous times, but this was different. Instead of floating above the waves in a large raft, I was down in them. In the small boat I could feel every push and tug of the water. I learned the river’s movements and what would flip my boat and what would keep me upright.

Everything about kayaking is counter-intuitive. When you’re flipped over the first thing you want to do is get your head above the water, but your head must be the last thing to roll up or you will flip back over. When you end up going towards a large rock and can’t maneuver away, instead of leaning away from the stone, you must romance the boulder by leaning in or you will flip. When the rapid is taking you faster than you choose, you can’t stop paddling to slow down.

I’m lucky enough to live close to great kayaking rivers. The South Fork of the American River is only forty minutes from home. There I have a class II – III river. I screamed with joy the first time I kayaked a long class III wave train and splashed through feeling like I was on a roller coaster ride. As the waves ended, and I was riding on flat water, I looked up at the beautiful canyon walls and felt the beauty of being out in nature.

Kayaking still scares me. When I flip in current I don’t always know if I’ll be able to roll up as the current grabs hold of my paddle and I struggle. But to be outside on a hot day, watching the birds, flowing with the river, seeing the beauty of nature, and hearing the rush of the water is an amazing experience. And busting through waves and surfing holes isn’t bad either.