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| Many, many kayaks |
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SK102 is The Chesapeake Paddlers Association's annual skills training event down at Lake Anna. I attended this event in 2001 as a student and, if Brian's records are right, in 2005 as an instructor. In addition, one year I trespassed on Saturday night to join in the bonfire and add accordion music to the festivities. In any case, when I volunteered to instruct this year it was a return after a long absence. The event is an awesome gathering in many ways, perhaps most amazingly because it is held at someone's house - yes, a pair of CPA members have for each of the last fifteen years opened their property to 150 strangers for a group campout and skills weekend.
My biggest concern wasn't my ability to teach, anything about camping, or even getting there on a Friday through the inevitable traffic. Rather, I was concerned about instruments. Having just this past year put hundreds of bucks into undoing years of accordion abuse I was a little leery of bringing the squeezebox camping. My only option in terms of battery-powered keyboard was my 1990's vintage clunker. I even went shopping to look at what's on the market now in the area of decent portable keyboards but eventually wound up sticking with what I have and loading up both the old keyboard and the accordion - as well as a full load of camping and kayaking gear. I had a last minute temptation - stopped at the Guitar Center in Fredericksburg, thinking of doing a just-in-time gear upgrade, but they didn't have the keyboard I was looking for.
SK102 is a carefully and expertly choreographed event. Friday started with a quick pot-luck among a subset of friends, followed by the night-time paddle (moved earlier this year so that it was more of a sunset paddle).
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| Saturday morning meeting, students on the left, instructors on the right |
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| Heading for the water |
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Saturday is the really fully day of the event. My way into the day was eased by an change since I had last been there - coffee for the group, courtesy of a very early rising coffee crew. I just had to Jetboil a little water for my grits, grab some coffee from the lakefront urns and I was good to go. The official activities of the day start with a group meeting of all instructors and students, after which everyone split up for their morning sessions. I was paired teaching rescues with Jim Z.,who had prepared a detailed and very full syllabus for the session. As assistant instructor my role was to demonstrate all the rescues and so I got to fall out of my boat and get back in again and again - paddle float, cowboy, T rescue and scoop. I even got to demonstrate re-entry and roll, though there was no one there to see it. At one point I was still in the water when Jim decided to take the group over to the next cove to start talking about the next rescue. Finding myself left behind I did the quickest solo reentry I knew to get back in my kayak so I could catch up with the group.
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| Teaching partner Suzanne (at right) |
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| Teaching partner Jim Z. |
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After a quick lunch break I headed out to teach the same class again, this time paired with Suzanne, who did not have a printed syllabus but still had a good idea of what she wanted to cover. I did a lot less demonstrating in the afternoon, as several of the students were experienced and were eager to try out their rescues by serving as Also, while Jim and I did one demo and then had everyone practice in parallel, Suzanne had people pair up and work in a supervised fashion one pair of students at a time. Suzanne's serial method meant that less material was covered; on the other hand, everyone got individual attention.
When the afternoon classes were over I mucked around the waterfront a little, trying out a few boats (the P&H Cetus LV and MV models, in case you care), watched the impossibly graceful Alison demonstrate some Greenland rolls and then headed back to the tent city to relax a little before dinner. Saturday night's dinner is provided as part of the event, this year featuring an upgraded menu of burgers (no horse meat this year), beans (the kind with $%*@ bacon),salad and lots of sides.
Saturday night also features a group campfire and a demonstration of how signal flares work. I had organized some music for the campfire; Jen, Manuel, Paul C. and I muddled our way through some tunes, with occasional singing help from Reggie and others.
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| Caterwauling |
Sunday is more informal than Saturday. After hearing it was going to be really crowded I decided to skip the early morning yoga class in favor of an extra trip to the coffee urn. I then hit the water, this time as a student, to get some wing paddling tips from Bill and Kristina. That was a good class, with participation from both wing paddle experts (like Susanita, paddling a surf-ski with a wing) to newbies like me. With this class and coaching from both Brian and Cyndi on Thursday night paddles I have the good fortune of being able to tap a lot of real wing experts.
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| Lead singer Reggie |
Sundays at Lake Anna are famous for rain, and though there was none in the forecast it did start to rain lightly around mid-day, hastening everyone's departure. So, around noon, after lots of hugs I headed into the northbound traffic for the ride home.
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| "Frankenpaddling" with the wing to get the feel of proper torso rotation |
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