When the opportunity to take a master class with Dubside came up, I jumped on it. What was he going to teach? What were the details? It didn't matter. Dubside is one of the masters of traditional Greenland-style kayaking, one of the few Americans to have competed in the Kayak Championship competitions in Greenland. I mean, you really should see this guy do a Kinnguffik paarlallugu/nerfallaallugu (Greenlandic for "coming up on the other side, on one's back"). Plus, he's a little bit of a character - kind of like a mystical shaman of the kayaking world. He has no fixed address. He dresses all in black. Even his kayak and kayaking gear are black. He has the kind of long, wild beard one would expect a mystic to have. He doesn't own a car and so paddles a folding kayak, which he schleps around on public transportation. And of course, he has only one name ... Dubside.
My kayaking pal Jen, who lives around the corner from me and I *for once* managed to coordinate car-pooling (we usually meet up at launch points and say "oh, we should have car-pooled"). We threw the boats on the car first thing in the morning and headed down to Mason Neck. We got there on time only to find most everyone else already there, so we hustled our gear down to the launch and hurried over to join the gang.
The day started with some talk about traditional kayaking and some stretches. In addition to the quirks already noted, it appears that Dubside has had his skeleton surgically removed, since he has some unbelievable flexibility. All thanks to yoga, he says. We all worked to emulate some bit of his flexibility, then we got on the water.
It was a pretty windy morning. There was significant chop in Belmont Bay, which meant we got a chance to practice under rough water conditions as we learned to fine tune our strokes and braces. I was a little dismayed to find my dry suit leaking a little at one wrist; this is something I'm going to have to investigate. I did my best to ignore the trickle of water slowly soaking my right arm and joined the group in surfing the waves back into Kane's Creek where it was calmer, but - as usual - quite shallow. Freshly armed with tips on how to add power to our stroke, we turned back into the wind and smashed through the waves back to the put-in. The strokes portion of the class filled the morning. By the time we got back to the put-in it was about noon, so we pulled the boats up on shore and took a lunch break on land.
During the break I had a chance to talk with a good friend who is back on the water after a nasty round of chemo. I admire this guy for maintaining a positive attitude through it all, and for his periodic - always upbeat - status emails through his ordeal. His emails never failed to inspire me to appreciate life a little bit more.
After lunch we focused on rolling. Unfortunately, the water level dropped dramatically during lunch break, almost as if someone had pulled the plug on Belmont Bay. I guess the tide combined with a shift in the winds accounted for this rapid drop. The net result was that the lower water level brought a bunch of weeds to the surface. You could paddle out past the weeds, but the wind would quickly blow you back. As a result, conditions weren't all that great and so I didn't do all that much rolling. I did a little practice using an Avataq (float) to get the feel of forward-finishing roll, but then I started to feel kinda wiped and so I headed back to the beach. A couple of other people headed in at about the same time. We chatted until the rest of the group came back in a little while later.
The class finished up back on land, with quick snippets of video from Greenland and some commando kayaking sea stories. Unfortunately, I had to bail because I knew I had to get home for Mother's Day dinner (Valerie is amazing to have let me go to this class on Mother's Day at all). So, I twisted Jen's arm a little to leave and we pointed the car northward towards home. And I made it back in time for dinner - barely.
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