Remember around this time last year, when I signed up for and completed a 2 day kayaking skills course?

Well, that was the first and last time I was out on the water on my kayak for that season, due to the throbbing, pulsing pain in my right leg that happened if I remained in a seated position for too long. This pain had started the previous winter, making any road trip of more than 30 minutes duration very painful and making kayaking damn near impossible. A specialist figured it could be degenerative disc disease (Mom had this) and suggested an MRI. Then the pain slowly faded as inexplicably as it came on, although my right leg behaves a bit differently than my left leg, still. (The MRI is on hold, should the pain come back.)

Anywho… I signed up for a 2 hour self-rescue clinic this spring with the incredible Caroline Ross of Crosscurrents Kayak – with hopes of being able to get out on the water more soon and feeling the need for a rescue refresher first. Caroline’s tagline from her website is Up your skills. Up your confidence. Up your fun, and I’m thrilled to say she delivered on all three “ups”, for me!

I had 1 overarching goal for this session – to learn to use the stirrup I had purchased to get me back into my boat. I was thinking this would be easier than the heel hook re-entry, and result in less wear-and-tear (aka pretty terrific bruising) on my thighs. *Spoiler alert * – I did complete this goal and realized that I actually prefer the heel hook re-entry, and yes…I do have some pretty terrific bruising, once again. Hmmm, maybe I should learn how to roll???? 🤔

We were also instructed to try the scramble method of getting back into the kayak – this did not work for me, but I was more than happy to be able to use either the heel hook or stirrup to get myself back into my boat, with my trusty paddle float acting as an outrigger. I’m sorry I don’t have any photos or video of this to show you but there are plenty of videos on YouTube if you want to know what these self-rescues look like. And there are some photos on the post that I have linked, above.

The last exercise of the day was a balance challenge. We went out into deep water and were challenged to get out of the cockpit and onto our back decks and back into our seats again, without flipping our boats. And, if we did flip…Congratulations! You get to do another self-rescue! I did not think I would be successful but it’s amazing what you can do when you really don’t feel like doing yet another self-rescue 🤣.

Caroline was snapping pics and graciously shared them with me.

The rush that comes with pushing yourself beyond what you think is physically possible is something that I haven’t felt in a long while and something I want to feel more of. I’ve missed this!

Many, many thanks to Caroline Ross for providing me with such excellent instruction and coaching, and for the opportunity to see what this old body is still capable of.

Rock on, and keep those elbows up!

The WB