One man's rush to jump on the kayaking bandwagon

Curcular Surfing

When the current and wind are just right, the waves break over a sandbar. Ride a wave over the bar, then paddle around to catch another one, repeat.
tags: surfing

July 26, 2009

Rotary Cooling

Rolling. It seems like it is what separates the real paddlers from the plastic bathtub jockey's. I believe that today might be the day I finally earned the right to call myself a real paddler, at least according to those that value rolling above all else.
I was looking forward to a long paddle up to the north end of Wrightsville Beach, but the humidity and impending thunderstorms made me reconsider. The wind was calm and the humidity high. I decided to work on rolling.
I struggled with rolling for a long time before finally figuring it out last summer. I never developed it to the point where it was reliable, I fell out of practice, and I eventually lost it. The last time I was at the beach, I spent some time upside down and eventually developed a fairly consistent sweep roll. Whatever muscle memory I developed then seemed to have evaporated as the sweep roll was again elusive.
Between my morning and afternoon paddles, I spent some time watching Nigel Foster's Rolling and Bracing and decided that I was making it too hard on myself. As soon as I hit the water, I nailed a C to C roll on both my on and off sides. It felt very natural and effortless -- just like I thought it should.
tags: coastal

July 26, 2009

Paddling on the 4th

The weather was in the low 80's. The wind was blowing just enough to keep everything cool. A perfect day for a trip out in the ocean to the Johnny Mercer Pier and back.
tags: coastal

July 04, 2009

Very happy 4th

The plan was to paddle around to the front of Masonboro Island and do some surfing. Let me put it this way, I chickened out.
tags: coastal

July 03, 2009