Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Kayaking, Part III

And here are some more...this is me (Ronda) entering a set of rapids...not sure if I made it through or not. I flipped a few times during our whole trip. Amazingly and surprisingly I made it through a hole 2 out of 3 times...both times I made it, I was backwards, unintentional of course, but the one time I thought I had it under control...I flipped! I wonder if I could make that into a spiritual, life lesson?

And here is ...Ben, I think, being rescued by one of our guides. These guys were GOOD! And they were so fun to watch. Once they crawled into their kayaks it was like they "became the kayak". By the way, once you are flipped like this there are several options you have in order to be saved. There is a self-rescue where you pull your cord on the skirt and then swim out from underneath. Or, once you are under (like Ben is below) you can put your hands on either side of the kayak and swipe them back and forth until you feel the nose of your guides kayak and then grab the front hook and right yourself by using a bit of "hip movement", called the T-rescue. Or you can learn how to do an Eskimo roll or a guitar roll. I only figured out the first 2 methods. The later 2 take a bit of coordination and more time to learn than I had.

Everyone having fun on a calm spot.

And this was the mystery... why did we often times flip on relatively calm water? This is me in the forefront and I think Stan under the water.
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2 comments:

Maylan said...

How long would it take until your guide came to rescue? Looks like you're drinking lots of water there.

Chandelle Cotter said...

your family is so fun and so full of adventures:)