Practicing a Self-Rescue

After Kathleen's previous excitement, we bought a variety of extra safety gear and I got psyched to practice getting wet myself. Today, the weather was wonderful. I just had to do a bunch of yard cleanup chores before she would let me go play in the water. I enumerate here all the reasons why my experience was much easier than hers:

1. Planned
2. Calm lake
   
3. Wetsuit
4. Two float bags in the bow
5. Paddle float
   
6. Water not quite so cold
7. Watched self-rescue video beforehand
   
8. Kathleen ready to go with PFD, ropes, and backup paddle float.

As we were watching The Dolphin Eye's "Practical Kayaking" DVD, I realized that we'd never actually seen the self-rescue section. We'd only watched the buddy rescue demonstrated in Ken & Nicole Whiting's "Recreational Kayaking" DVD. Here's the spot we used. It's at the end of our neighborhood's cove; photo taken from the adjoining neighborhood's decent-sized dock.


Here's the video of the first attempt (with color commentary by Kathleen):


Here's the video of the second attempt (Yikes, I wonder if I can do anything about that dorsal still for the image preview. Thanks, YouTube, it's very flattering!):


Context for references in the videos: Andy is our friend who was with us on the South Fork. Walter & Patty are friends on the lake who came by, in one of their boats, while we were getting started.

A very fun experience. And I feel good about succeeding both times. (Afterwards, I was kicking myself for not having tried some bracing techniques to see if I could recover from a tilt.)

I did discover one thing about the kayak dress code... If you do, in fact, dress for the water temperature, you better get in the water on warm days like this, or you'll roast. I wonder if bringing a scooper and pouring water down my neoprene shirt would be the best practice. ;-)