Sea Kayak Training Weekend

With my boss out of town for a few days, it turned out to be a great opportunity to take some vacation days. Six great days on the coast in Swansboro at the Southern Outer Banks Sea Kayak Symposium at Barrier Island Kayaks. It's actually my 3rd symposium there over the past 6 years.

We had some pretty hot weather, but with great ocean breezes and perfect water temperatures, it was the best place to be in N.C. There was a nice local contingency of paddlers there, and it's always great fun seeing folks you only get to see and visit with during these events, and there's wonderful opportunities to make some new paddling friends too.

My goal was to work on performance skills. After the last couple of years of endurance and distance work work and predominantly paddling my Kruger Dreamcatcher, I'd worried it might have been at the expense of my seakayaking performance skills.

Didn't really need to worry at all. When it was all over, I had a "new" BCU 3* award to add to my old 4*. I also got to work with Sherri and Turner on front recovery rolls (more work to do), and got in quite a bit of rough water and surf work in moderate conditions.

Now I'm working on selling our old piano so I can buy a new NDK Explorer with the new Kari-Tec skeg/rudder system. This system will be perfect for my Pacific Action Sail.

I also got to talk to Russell Farrow from Sweetwater Kayaks about his upcoming IR Vacation to Hell. I mentioned KiwiBird's and my plans for the Yukon1000 next year. Hmmm, he strongly suggested we look into bringing along a shotgun. There's bears up there.