Adventures in Learning

Remember my comments about how my sister is one of those people who researches everything thouroughly? She is also a big fan on learning from a pro.

So off we go to Maine for a weekend of camping and kayaking with the author of "The complete Sea Kayaker's Hanbook" Shelley Johnson and a gang of women sponsored by Wild Women Outfitters. Beautiful campground and a group of relative newbies to the sport of kayaking, perfect!

We spend the first day setting up camp, going over the itinerary, hauling our gear and having it checked for safety and generally getting acquainted. We retire to our tents to get a very early start.

I find out my sister snores.

Or maybe it was me.

After a quick breakfast and some last minute instructions, we climb into our wetsuits and follow instructions to move out into a cove to practice a number of drills including the most important...rolling.

Now if you're an avid watcher of extreme sports, you've witnessed those rolls in incredible conditions as some wild person flies through the narrow chasm with pounding waves and huge rocks and comes up laughing with exileration. So how hard can it be to do it in a protected cove with gently lapping waves with a bunch of adventursome women to keep you safe?

When being given instructions by a professional on how to save my life, all my smart aleck nature goes into hibernation and I am completely attentive. I listen, understand and prepare to do as instructed: in my kayak with spray skirt attached I am to list to the side until my kayak rolls over and I am upside down in the water. I am then to lean forward "hugging" the boat bottom and striking it so those I am kayaking with will hear the noise and know I am underwater. This same movement will release me from the seat and I will then swim up to the surface. (Please note: this is my recollection, do NOT attempt without professional instruction...or at least keep reading so you understand this cautionary statement!!)

OK. I've watched several of my fellow classmates roll and come up the side and learn to reenter their boat. One of the coaches floats along side and asks if I'm ready to go...you bet! So over I go. I'm not sure what happened between the fun feeling of rolling over and opening my eyes in the cold murky water but I realize I haven't fallen out and I push back in my seat to try and release myself. I'm stuck in the seat. I shove back again and feel a searing pain in my finger...I then realize my ring finger is caught in the rigging. Real panic sets in and I gasp. Bad, bad move when you are underwater.

Somewhere in my head a loud voice yelled (over the one saying ohmygodi'mgoingtodrown), stop and think. I stopped shoving myself backwards and leaned forward to hit the bottom with the hand I could get free. My body drops out of the kayak and I come to the surface coughing and gaging water. The horrifed faces of my sister and the newly certified coach greet me. When I stop choaking and reassure them I will live (if the humiliation doesn't do me in) I get my hand untangled from the rigging....I still to this day, do not have any idea how that was even possible.

I hear all about "the hand of God" which is what was getting ready to happen when I didn't surface immediately....the coach would have reached below the boat and dragged me up. I manage to climb into my kayak and try to calm myself. My sister and I exchange reassuring comments and wisecracks to break the tension. Because she and I know what's coming.

Sure enough, Shelley drifts up along side and asks how I'm doing. "You know you have to do it again, right?" I do.... in my logical mind... but I now, for the first time in my water loving, always swimming life, understand why some people are afraid of the water.

I feel my heart racing and feel fear of the water myself for the first time in 47 years. I hear her calm voice reassuring me. I really want to cry and get out of the boat but I know if I don't, I'll never get it in again. I know my sister is somewhere nearby but all I can see is Shelly's hull and mine. I get ready and freeze. I look up and and see a face of calm understanding. "You'll be fine. I'm right here". She has me talk through the sequence again. And waits for me to make that decision.

I take a breath. I roll over. I'm underwater and I think, ok, lean forward, smack the hull and as I do so I feel my butt drop out of the seat, the spray skirt releases and I come up along side my boat. And now I do cry. I did it. We go on with the lessons of the day.