One man's rush to jump on the kayaking bandwagon

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.

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.

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.

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.