Back to Lincoln Woods – Wet Exits and Edging in the Capella – August 17, 2022

Bill in his P&H Ocra

My spray skirt came in yesterday, so I asked Bill to spot for me at Lincoln Woods while I did some wet exits. It turns out that swimming out of a canoe for years is good practice for doing wet exits in a kayak. I did one without the skirt, one with the skirt, and popped out both times. Bill said that I was out of the boat so fast that I didn’t even get one side of my body wet. A bit of an exaggeration, but I was out fast and I don’t like being upside-down in the water. I need to work on that if I am ever going to learn to roll.

Me in my P&H Capella

We did a leisurely paddle around Olney Pond and I tried to practice some edging. I used Bill’s bow to figure out where the secondary stability was, and tried paddling some circles on an outside edge – it worked.  I was able to paddle circles with sweep and forward strokes.  Even without paddling, the boat was turning away from the side that I edged – pretty cool.  Definitely going to take some practice for me to get used to these outside edge turns, but I am beginning to see where the skill in sea kayaking comes from.