NSWSKC AGM @ Bundeena

Tomorrow marks another year for the NSWSKC, celebrated at the Annual General Meeting at Bundeena. We'll be down at the event from early tomorrow morning with boats for members who are coming along without a boat, and others to demo on the bunch of club trips heading in the morning, before the formal proceedings of the afternoon.
The details are HERE.

Paddle to Work...?

Emerging from a taxing couple of months of home inspections, selling a house, buying a house, the usual work/life pressures and a cool Sydney winter, I've finally settled the family into a temporary holiday house in the bayside suburb of Kurnell. With eight weeks to kill until our new house is vacant, I figured a home on the water would be fun for a short spell before we go back to the 'burbs for the next twenty years...

My office in Marrickville is about a 900m stroll from the Cooks River, which feeds out into Botany Bay. From the beach at Kurnell, about 11km down the line, it's another 200m to our house, so I have committed to paddling to & from work two or three times a week. I reckon 'what the hell, who ever gets the chance to do that...?'
First job was to rig up the Rapier 20 with some lights, and then set the camera to record the maiden voyage. It wouldn't be much fun with a 20kg+ boat so I put an old set of wheels on the Rapier, which weighs in at about 15kg, and off I went. 

I'm sure the sight of a man in fitted black rubber clothing wandering through industrial Marrickville with a long black phallic canoe would have had some of the locals looking twice. It might just provide some inspiration for a new Mardi Gras float. A float that floats...?
My put in spot at the Cooks River is, umm, interesting. It's a river making a bit of a comeback after a century as the default dumping ground for inner Sydney's now defunct heavy industry, but it still has some serious aesthetic issues. The banks are revegetating, the fishermen are back & as you progress downstream the birds are active & numerous, but I still wouldn't fancy a swim. The black goop on the banks & the deep silty brown (Sweet Georgia Brown?) water don't exactly take me back to the foothills of the Patagonian Andes.
But, it's a waterway to the sea, and my highway home, so it has to do...!
Heading down the river you pass the airport, then out onto Botany Bay itself. After seven years living alongside Botany Bay I've come to appreciate it for the unique place it is. It's full on working port, with the biggest airport in the region, a desalination plant pipeline bolted along it's keel line, yet it retains pristine mangroves on the southern shore, lovely white sandy beaches from Kyeemagh to Dolls Point, and features a National Park on it's northern & southern headlands. I've paddled it most weeks either on my fitness paddle along the western shore, or out to sea from La Perouse, and using just the past year as a snapshot have seen everything from a mirror calm lagoon to a seven metre wave, in a series of four metre swells off the lighthouse at Henry Head. I've paddled calm water, surf off Dolls Pt (5km inland of the heads), rough bastard headwinds & had stupendous 20kmh+ blasts downwind in my surf ski, as well as smashing myself up on the rocks behind Bare Island, all in this essentially enclosed area called Botany Bay.
Paddling out into the bay in the fading light there were commercial dive boats heading home, trawlers making their way in from a day offshore, and the usual assortment of tinnies & punters hauling lines after a calm day's recreational fishing.
From the tip of the southern runway I carved a line across to Kurnell (or Far Kurnell to the locals), a place proudly announced on a beaten up sign as 'the birthplace of modern Australia'. It's a moniker laced with irony, when you could reasonably argue that it also represents the staging post of the beginning of the end for ancient Australia.
I could make out the long finger wharves which transport the petrochemicals from the Caltex Refinery to the tanker ships, and as I got closer in the dusk light the  refinery started to light up like a celestial city of linear halogens.
Pushing through the last few metres I checked the GPS, showing 11.3km, covered in about an hour & a quarter. A spectacular & varied paddle which on it's day will doubtless present some good sea conditions, but which for Tuesday's inaugural 'Paddle Home' presented a gentle & relaxing cruise....with a bit of man-hauling...

Alien invasion in Canberra?

ACT paddler Marty Holden sent this photo through this morning of what looks to me like an impending alien mothership about to devour Canberra, and Marty in his Nordkapp LV. I guess this would save us the anguish of another election campaign...
Marty writes:
"We were out paddling on Lake Burley Griffin on Sunday morning in a nice cool temperature of -4 degrees.
The temperature was pretty normal for Canberra, but the fog was a complete pea souper – to the extent that we literally got lost 3 times within an hour.
However for a brief 5 minutes a small patch of fog cleared and we were able to take the attached photo whilst admiring Black Mountain."
It's some photo, probably one of the best kayaking pics I've seen, the photographer is Justin Channells, thanks Marty for sending it in. 

Ocean Paddler Reviews the Reed PFD

The esteemed sea kayaking magazine in the UK, Ocean Paddler, has reviewed our Reed PFD. You can see the review HERE.
It's a comprehensive review & we concur with their findings, that this is a well priced, very well thought out piece of kit, made to last & fitted with enough features to enhance, rather than detract, from the performance of the unit in the sea.
We are very lucky at EK to have our 'canary in the coal mine' in the form of Rob Mercer, who wears & uses all of our Reed gear, 6 days a week on full days paddling & instructing. This gives us a great insight into the wear & tear on our products, the likelihood of their failure, where they'll go if they do, and as a consequence what advice to give our customers on care & maintenance. 
A month of paddling for Rob equates to more than a year of water time for me, and I dare say the majority of paddlers out there, so we are very confident of the capabilities of our gear. It's part of the reason we offer so little choice - if we don't think something cuts the mustard we don't put our reputations behind it.
We have good stock of the Reed PFD, available nationally including freight to your door for $219.00.
You can subscribe to Ocean Paddler, the world's best sea kayaking mag, at www.oceanpaddlermagazine.com

Bobby Barter - Behind the Green Door.

Forgive me a short interlude from paddling to plug a book written by of one of my old cricket mates, Bobby Barter's 'Behind the Green Door'.
In my days playing cricket for Randwick, as if getting into first grade wasn't incentive enough, the cream on the cake was having Bobby as the manager/dressing room attendant/advisor on life/tipster and all round champion bloke. When I retired & took up paddling he wrote a poem about me in the Hawkesbury Classic, carefully weaving in what were then my world-class abilities in what the French call 'la troisième demi', the name of my first boat (Che Guevara) & the fact that I had a Cockatiel called Frank Bunce. I told him then & there his talents would take him to the top of the bestsellers list!
When Bob was in charge, you'd walk into the sheds at the start of the day and a whole table would be set up with fruit, energy drinks, tape for those niggling injuries, a water bottle with your name on it and any number of other little touches to make the day go easier. Even though it was only ever semi professional at that level, you felt like you were at Lords, or... the SCG, rather than Coogee Oval.... 

When Simon Katich arrived at Randwick Petersham (as the club became after merging with nearby Petersham), the legend of Bob's dressing room excellence had grown to epic proportions, and in 2004 he was offered the job of 'roomie' at the hallowed dressing room at the SCG. 

Bob has spent the last 6 years watching some of the great moments in cricket from the inner circle, and has written a book about his experiences. It's not your normal stats loaded, sport centric cricket book, but rather a fly on the wall account by a guy who is clearly held in the highest esteem by the players we all know as household names. It's a great read even for those not interested in sport in general, and will be available from Bob's website www.scggreendoor.com shortly.

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.