Cold kayaking

Yesterday I had my mandatory kayak safety training prior to my big trip. The kayak safety training is designed to give us experience with both being rescued and rescuing someone who flips in their kayak while at sea and needs assistance getting back in.

Most of the people going on this trip had this training back in September and October when the temperatures were a bit warmer. I was never able to make any of the other training meetings so I had to go with our fearless leader Steve over to one of the other kayakers homes and use their pool along with her daughter Anna who is also going on the trip. They live in the Los Altos hills (as opposed to Los Altos Hills which is another town) and the evening temperatures there are dropping into the chilly 40's and 50's. Their pool is not heated. This means that their pool was a very cold place to get wet yesterday.

Anna (who was wearing a wetsuit) went first. Now there was only room for one kayak in the pool so that meant the rescuer had to "simulate" being in a kayak meaning standing in the pool while the rescuee flipped over, performed the wet exit and then got back into the kayak. I was only wet from chest down for this part of the exercise which lasted about 10 minutes.

During the rescue the rescuer has to maneuver their boat up to the flipped boat and help drain the water, manage the paddles, flip the boat and help provide a stable platform for the other person to climb back in. Fortunately Anna was comfortable and she only needed to practice her exit once.

Then it was my turn. I got all of the now wet spray skirt and PFD on and climbed into the kayak. The appropriate procedure when you flip calls for banging on the boat three times to alert the other boaters that you have flipped, then locating the release strap on the front of the spray skirt, releasing it, sliding out of our kayak while keeping a foot in so that it does not float away. All of this while keeping hold of your paddle. In general it is not too hard but the water was cold and that does tend to focus the senses. When I rolled the boat I did my requisite three taps and then started reaching for the skirt release to find that it wasn't as clear as it seemed when I was above the water (where it is easier to breath btw). On the spray skirt there are also other straps and a mesh bag for convenient storage. I was holding the paddle under my arm and hunting around for this strap and ever so briefly I started thinking "what if I can't find this damn thing". Fortunately in what was certainly seconds I found it and out I came. I completed the rest of the exercise without incident and we were done in the pool.

After 20 minutes in the pool I was cold to the core so much so that I was still cold when I came home almost an hour later.

Fortunately all of the temps, water and air, will be higher when we are in the Bahamas in a week and I am glad to have gone through the training.