Clubbing

After a long period of work & family inspired absence from any club-based instruction, I got back out on the water on Sunday with my club mates from the NSWSKC.
The event was an intro to sea skills weekend at the club's stalwart venue, Bundeena & its iconic Bonnie vale campground. I put my hand up to help out on the Sunday with some instructing, after checking that Nic was happy to look after the kids on one of her precious Sundays (thanks again darlin'...)
The NSW club was where it all began for me as a paddler back in 2002, turning up to yet another Bundeena weekend organised by Rob Mercer to do a - wait for it - intro to sea proficiency weekend. I clearly remember telling Rob, Nick Gill & Andrew Eddy about some of the things I'd been up to solo with my dodgy, Napoleon Dynamite skills, in combination with an over-endowment of confidence (hey what's changed...) and watching their experienced eyes roll in unanimous disapproval. These guys took safety & skills acquisition seriously, and there was none of the dressing shed celebration of recklessness that provided most of the entertainment when I was running around Coogee Oval. Clearly, my ambition was writing cheques that my ability couldn't cash....
Back then it was the sea proficiency award, and the skills taught have evolved almost to an unrecognisable format from those first experiences for me of formal instruction. 
What hasn't changed is the selfless volunteerism of the club, the eagerness of novice & guru alike to share experiences & take part in what is essentially a fantastic entity for meeting like-minded folk & sharing in this amazing sport we call sea kayaking. 

A broad church - Matt Leonard in his timber boat with stick, off Jibbon Beach

On Sunday I had a group of reasonably inexperienced paddlers who were clearly dedicated to turning themselves into sea kayakers. The inescapable thing about sea kayaking is that if you're not out on the sea, well, it's just kayaking. The joys & rewards of our sport are magnified in the challenging environment of open water, but with that come the risks to manage, the skills to garner & the mental attitude to get committed. I'm a big believer in the old euphemism that you truly get out what you're prepared to put in. If you want to be a true sea kayaker, be prepared that you'll have to earn your right to safely progress to a skill level where you're not going to be a liability to your own safety or the safety of your paddle mates. I reckon it's very liberating deciding you're going to do something properly, and then knuckling down to do it right from the beginning, & ticking off the boxes as you acquire your skills.
The sea skills award in it's current incarnation is a very comprehensive course. You need to present your boat to a sea-ready standard. You need to be able to competently handle surf & self rescue, perform rescues on others, carry & understand the necessary safety kit, understand the weather forecast & it's application to the area in which you're paddling, and log a couple of decent open water paddles. Some think it's an unnecessary bureaucratic set of hoops, but I see a list of essentials for any aspiring sea kayaker, who doesn't want to end up hanging out of a Westpac chopper or worse. At the end of the day it's skill, not gear, that gets you through.

Owen Walton keeping a close eye on a rescue demo

The eight paddlers in my group ran through some basics of good rotation in forward stroke, & how that skill learned properly then makes it very easy to translate to a paddling system of blended strokes, that rely on the power of your torso to control your boat. We worked on some dynamic low bracing techniques, and then covered the several approaches to rescues. It was about 12 degrees, and the water was not too much warmer, yet everyone threw themselves into the exercises, dunking themselves into the wintery water, practicing rescues as the rescuer & the victim, and generally pushing themselves to the magic tipping point.
We finished off with self rescues, of course in my opinion there is no such thing that works in dire straits better than a good roll, and I think the point was proven as less than half of the willing participants managed a cowboy scramble, or whatever it's called nowadays. 
This club based training is great for visually getting a consolidated idea of what constitutes good technique. It gives new paddlers an opportunity to get into a supportive environment & learn new skills, but in reality it really only gives you a tiny taste of what's really required. Every paddler I know who has graduated to be a really competent ocean kayaker has worked & worked on their skills in a variety of conditions to get to where they are. My own development as a kayaker was accelerated by one-on-one sessions with paddlers much better than me, asking live questions in live conditions & 'learning by immersion', if you get my drift. The onus is really on the individual to get stuck in & get committed to a high standard, with short guide lights like club weekends or good commercial instruction there to correct course. What my club, the NSW Sea Kayak Club has goes far beyond a 'service based' training program. I get annoyed by people who sign up for the 'free training' then bugger off after a year, but maybe that is the nature of a consumer culture where we are constantly asking 'what's in it for me'?
I actually think the most valuable thing you get from a club like the NSWSKC is not the training, but the opportunity to get out on the sea safely & with more experienced paddlers on their terrific trips calendar. All of my own instruction in recent times has been trips based, I've never been a big fan of the 'gather 'round little paddlers & watch me while I do this' method of instructing. On a trip, you get to make your own mistakes & work things out for yourself, within the parameters of the basics that a good formal instruction session will provide. A novice paddler with a few good sessions of expert commercial instruction would be off to a flying start in a club environment.
My club has a sense of community & common purpose, it's a place to find peers with shared goals in their own paddling, and has a long & distinguished history of making the sport safer. I've had mates interstate telling me about the great gains being made by the Tasmanian Sea Canoeists (if you're from Tassie you get to call yourself a sea canoeist...), the VSKC & the burgeoning Queensland Sea Kayak Club, so these organisations are out there wherever you may be, to join up to, learn from, & hopefully contribute toward in return.
I thoroughly enjoyed my day on the water, and regret that for the moment three kids under 6 and three equally demanding business leave me with little time to contribute to the club. Thanks to my bunch of paddlers for a great day.....

Customised Boat Deadline

Only a week left if you're after a customised Valley or Rockpool boat in our September shipment. 
Options with Rockpool include your own customised art complete with glitter & metallic 'jewel' paint, starfish, the excellent & innovative Rockpool electric pump system, or a slightly lighter exotic Vac 2 layup, an HT Pack, or even a 3 piece boat made by a true expert in the craft. Check out the Rockpool Options page for details. Or, you could be the second person in the country to own the much copied, but still original & best tideracer, the Alaw or it's smaller sibling the Alaw Bach.

With Valley you're able to have a customised bulkhead & foot pump pre-installed, the bombproof Aerospace Vacuum Infused Carbon-Kevlar layup, and a colour scheme to match your Landrover, all made by the original British boat manufacturer....

Drop either Rob or myself a line before Friday if you'd like your own British boat custom built & here in time for the coming paddling season.

The Paddle to Seattle

This is one unusual sea kayaking DVD. Josh Thomas and J.J. Kelley are a pair of guys clearly taking the p-ss on most things as they set out to paddle the inside passage, 1200miles from Alaska to Seattle. They're not super skilful, experienced paddlers, their 'learn to roll' session and general skills during the movie demonstrate this, but theydecided on this adventure, built their own strip built boats & have made one of the funniest films I've seen for a long time. 
They weave the story of the small fishing communities they visit on the way through a very worthy trip full of sea life & amazing scenery. Their sense of humour is part self deprecating, Flight of the Conchords, part IT nerd in the outdoors, but clearly they are not inexperienced in being in the wild. Any trip of this length in this climate is a serious endeavour.
You know you're in for something when the first 3 minutes of the film are a monologue about what they wanted to call the film - Who's the Boss is taken, so is Everyone Loves Raymond, then they get the inspirational title 'Paddle to Seattle'. You get the drift....
The film has won about 100 awards at all of the North American film festivals on the circuit, and is a great way for paddlers to kill a couple of mid-winter hours in front of the telly.
You can order the DVD direct from these guys, it's only $20 and it arives about 4 days after you order.
In the mould of Beau Miles & his adventures these are two blokes worth supporting. If you buy enough of their DVD's they might make a sequel.
Their website is www.paddletoseattle.com

View from the Cliff Tops

A few months ago I took Geoff & Lynn Murray out for a paddle off Sydney Heads. One of Geoff's mates had a zoom lens & was busy snapping away from the top of the cliffs on North Head & Geoff has sent me a few of the pics. 

Geoff & Lynn Murray

Lynn, Mark & Geoff running along North Head

Lynn by a half head....

Chasing the wind waves

The water level photos look like this, a moderate day with the odd overhead wind swell of sea & some confused water, but from up above it all looks decidedly tame. It's a fair lesson to check things out from the water before you head around a headland if in doubt, the birds-eye view tends to moderate things a lot! 
(I think the snapper was Bob, so thanks again Geoff for sending through Bob's camera work...)

Valley Smiles in the Sunshine State

Graham Dredge has sent us down a bunch of pics from a recent day out on the water around the Sunshine Coast, where some of the brighter Valley boats were on display. Geoff Pender (above left) & Shane Reeve (left) are shown in their Tangerine/Grey Nordkapp, & Traffic Yellow/Grey Nordkapp LV respectively, lighting up the waterways of the coast...!

Brett Dominick has a 'very red' Nordkapp LV with a contrast yellow trim, excellent high vis. colour-ways for & venturing around the busy waterways and for expeditioning. I actually had to dull this pic down a few shades to prevent any glare injuries from unsuspecting readers....

Geoff's boat is a work of art. Custom built by the Valley gurus, it is a full carbon kevlar layup in a custom high vis colour, with a contrasting grey trim & keel strip. All Valley boats are built to last, but this one is definitely something special and Geoff is looking forward to learning the nuances of the new Nordkapp design over coming months.
And... a late entry from Gary Tischer in his new Nordkapp LV. Gary says 'Maybe we like yellow boats because they are like huge bananas .... and what Qlder doesn't love bananas?'

We'll be finalising our next shipments from Valley & Rockpool over the next 2-3 weeks for an early Spring delivery. If you'd like a custom built boat made in your own colours & with any extras that don't come as standard, please give us a yell some time in June.
Thanks Dredgy for the pics, and make sure you're wearing your sunnies if you run into any of these dudes on the water around Brissie....
The Queensland Sea Kayak Club has just launched a Youtube channel which you can see by cliking on the graphic below. It's worth a look for some of the beautiful paddling destinations these folks get out to.

St Johns First Aid Campaign

Following an incident last September where I had to use my first aid skills to revive a gent having a serious emergency, I was approached by St John to become one of their advocates.
This essentially involves making myself available on a volunteer basis, to tell people about my experience from the perspective of an ordinary person in the street, and to be an advocate for first aid training.
I've had some interesting experiences with the campaign so far, in particular being put well outside my comfort zone in a one-to-one on camera interview with Jennifer Byrne - now I know how Kevin07 felt when King Kerry put him under the torch. I can't say the TV interview experience would be pleasant one if you were a dodgy mortgage broker about to be dissected by a raging TV current affairs shock jock! You can see my interview, and some really amazing stories under the 'I never thought it would happen to me' section. In particular Paul Geller tells a harrowing story of his survival after a shark attack.

The campaign has been launched at St Johns new website www.stjohnfirstaid.com.au, and the advocate stories, as well as tales from professionals involved in the daily handling of such emergencies, and the hard-hitting TV ad above are all available for viewing. I showed the ad above to my staff last week, and the ones with no idea about first aid were completely shocked, whereas the ones who had some training weren't that phased by its hard hitting message. Why? The trained people immediately had a few ideas on how to sort out the emergency, the untrained ones would have had to either guess, or just stand by helplessly.
The gist of the campaign is that you never know when you might need it, and from my perspective it's a nice feeling to know that when the need arose, I was up to the task. The thing that struck me after we'd managed to revive the poor guy that day in Marrickville was how shocked the bystanders were. The overwhelming reason was that they had no idea what to do, and were grateful there was someone there who was, lest they have to act without any clue as to what to do in the emergency.
Research from St Johns shows that most people consider First Aid to be important, but few transfer that feeling into actually getting the certification. 
I urge you to get qualified if you're not. Even if you've done a course in the distant past, it is now definitely out of date, and in my own resuscitation experience I used a completely different CPR method to the one I was taught prior to my last refresher. I'm off to do my 3-year refresher next Monday & expect to learn a whole bunch of new techniques & skills.
You can enrol for a course through the St John site above, or my good mate Bruce McNaughton is running a course at the beautiful Neilsen Park Cafe (venue for Freya's talk in December) on August 8, which you're welcome to enrol in, if you're in the Sydney area and a club member. You can get details of Bruce's course through the NSWSKC Calendar, or by clicking HERE. Bruce is also running an adjoining Remote First Aid course the following weekend which is a fantastic thing for sea kayakers to do, considering the places we go & the things we do, sometimes well away from immediate medical help.
I have three beautiful and adventurous kids and consider it my duty to have the skills to assist them in any way should they require first aid. From time to time my paddling puts me in positions where the risks associated with the activity demand that I am capable of dealing with an emergency. In my workplace, I'm the only up to date first aid qualified person, so again it's a responsibility I take seriously.
With the campaign launched today, I look forward to doing a bit more towards raising awareness of the need for everyone to get some proper, up-to-date first aid training.

Nick Gust - Tasmanian Nordkapp Tuna Fisherman....!

Nick with 20KG Southern Bluefin Tuna

(photo copyright Nick Gust)

Tasmanian paddler Nick Gust sent in a photo overnight of him & his prize catch, a 20kg Southern Bluefin Tuna. He caught this blue-ribbon game fish while paddling his Nordkapp RM, some feat when you consider these animals have an amazing amount of power through the water. No Titanic beamed fishing SOT here folks, a proper sea kayak which many paddlers out there consider as being at the challenging end of the spectrum for stability. 
Nick said it took him 'for a bit of a ride', my interpretation of which is probably the same as yours. Hmm, Nordkapp, narrow beam, serious sport fish on the end of the line, cold Tasmanian water, eskimo roll while being pulled sideways through the water not really possible if I capsize, balance & core strength required to actually LAND the fish, then store the bloody thing somewhere, and so on.....
We are impressed, I think it's probably as close in the modern world as you could get to experiencing an Inuit-style hunt without.....umm....harpooning a Beluga. And you know what I really think...SAVE THE BELUGAS!
Nick, you're a legend, amazing story & one seriously Maui-proportioned fish.
Nick has written a story for the next edition of the Tasmanian Fishing & Boating News, so keep an eye out for it if you want the full tale from the man himself. 
The Southern Bluefin itself is of course a species under threat not just from the usual suspects, the Japanese fleets (who admit to harvesting 100,000 tonnes over their quota), but also from Australian commercial fishing. If you want find out more, check out the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefish Tuna.