Sea kayaking blog.

Sadly this component of the trip was cut short as I could not attend the final two days of the kayaking trip. During the two days leading up to the overnight trip I had the opportunity to practice and learn some new paddling skills. In a group of 13, we spent 2 days with our instructor Evan in the local waters around Kristiansand. We started off in the local river in town and progressed to paddling out into more open waters around the coastline of Odderøya and beyond.

Going into this week I did not expect to learn many new things as I have been paddling quite a lot doing multi-day river touring Australia. I was generally comfortable with forwards/reverse paddling as well as sweep strokes and generally staying upright in a kayak. But on the first day Evan taught us a wide variety of new techniques, many of which I didn’t know. He taught us how to use edging to steer our kayak in a straight line or using it in conjunction with a sweep stroke to turn the boat on the spot. I was able to spend a lot of time practicing edging whilst cruising down the river and I began to build confidence with it. At the end of the day we learnt about X-rescues which was mainly revision from previous experience for me but still enjoyed this part of the session. One thing that was slightly different was that Evan recommended to use a third person to stabilize the boat. I think this is a little bit of an overkill in a flatwater river environment but I can see how would be safer in very open and exposed waters and would insure the rescuer does not also capsize. Tom and I scored a little extra practice at X-rescues during the day after I lined up Marijn from the other side of the river and T -boned him, causing him to roll. Little did I know the water was only a meter deep so he nearly caught me for revenge but I just escaped (haha).

The second day was much more scenic as we paddled around Odderøya and back through the canal in town. Evan also taught us a few new techniques that I did not know. These were the 2 support strokes, high and low. I found the low support stroke much easier to perform if you kept your elbows vertically above the paddle. The high support stroke was much harder to perform correctly but after some practicing in the shallows I slowly got it. We also practiced using edging to turn on the spot which I really found helpful, I wish I had learnt this stuff before in Australia! It was really nice to finish the kayak trip off with a small through the canal that separates Odderøya from the town. It was also interesting to experience what it was like to handle waves from boats and the ocean in the areas around Odderøya. I definitely want to experience sea kayaking in some rougher waters some day.
Overall the 2 days of kayaking was much better than I expected, and I learnt more than expected as well. It was disappointing to miss the overnight trip and miss out on learning how to eskimo roll but I am looking forward to further practice at this back in Australia. I’m really appreciative of learning these new strokes this week as I have a semi epic sea kayaking trip that I’m planning in the back of my head and they will definitely be useful.