Sailors, raise your hands.
You might have noticed, in Part 1, my contempt for the entitled laziness of some skippers. On reflection I must hedge. My portrait of a pampered ?yachtsman? might apply unfairly to the larger group of ?those who sail,? as was suggested by a recent visit to Portland Yacht Services.
At the end of November, I joined my neighbor Luke in examining a 25-foot sailboat at the PYS yard. Luke and his wife already own a sailboat, but he knows of my interest in sailing, and thought it would make a perfect ?first boat?. He knew the owner. And the price was right: free.
It taught me a little about the yachting world and a lot about myself. No facade of grim formality received us at the PYS office: just some friendly grey-haired guys with calculators. It was a refreshingly capitalist exchange. I was never so delighted to be an anonymous consumer.
Of course, the numbers they crunched did not sum to zero. First of all, there was a winter storage fee of more than $1,000. Shrink-wrap was a few hundred more. Spring launching, more. And the cutlass bearing is going to fail at some point?
So, even if Luke?s friend did give away his sailboat, I?d be knee deep in commitment before it ever touched the sea. It was a frightening thought, and it struck me that while I often pined for the comforts of a sailboat, they weren?t worth the headaches.
My acceptance of windsurfing as a cheap alternative to (traditional) sailing is, I realized, actually a preference. Though a year or two of sailing might cost no more than my $4,000 investment in windsurfing gear, I?d rather have the versatility of windsurfing than the comfort and range of a sailboat.
How much is it costing me to store my windsurfing equipment this winter? Zero dollars. Spring launching? Zero. Take it to the lake? Zero. There is something deeply gratifying about its human scale. I carry it to the water. Then it carries me. We can travel on either side of the water?s edge. It seems almost magical.
That is why, in planning my resumption of the trek, I opted for kayaking. While it lacks the alluring promise of a free ride, it fits perfectly with my freshly acquired ?amphibious? mandate: to travel by water ?with my bed on my back?, and, at any moment, take to shore and disappear.
?Roll or Die.?
So said the bumper of an old Volvo wagon that just pulled in to the East End landing with two kayaks on top. A short, athletic young woman bounded out of the driver?s seat. She wore a braid of jet-black hair, from which many wily strands had drifted. She walked, I thought, like a tomboy.
It was early September. The parking lot was full of kayaks, including mine. I was going out paddling to practice ?eskimo? rolls. Everyone else, it seemed, was part of a class. She was one of the instructors.
I told her I was heartened by the sentiment of ?Roll or Die?. For the Inuits who first developed the kayak (and the roll) in icy northern waters, it was literally true. In our warmer waters, and with modern gear, it?s easier to get back into a kayak. But any such ?recovery? is a poor substitute to rolling. In rough conditions, it could come down to ?Roll or Die?.
I had learned to roll last summer by watching YouTube videos. I didn?t even have a spray skirt yet. I flipped over, thrashed around a little bit, failed a few times, and then, to my great surprise, succeeded. Some days later I tried again, but failed completely. Not even close. The required movements seemed impossible to imagine from an upside-down point-of-view, with water all around and air underneath.
In late August of this summer, we visited my in-laws on Shelter Island, New York. I brought my kayak and a book on eskimo rolling and practiced in the pool for hours. I wanted a ?bomb-proof? roll, a dependable, instinctive roll. I studied techniques, variations and drawbacks, and gradually it became easier. I wore a diving mask so that I could see what I was doing, and to keep water out of my nose.
I was confident, I dare say ?prepared? for the second leg of my trip.
Source: http://mybraincancerdiary.com/2012/12/12/heron-part-5/
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