Sunday, April 02, 2006
"A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner."Indeed.
Kayaking two star yesterday was absolute fun. Changi Coast Adventure Centre was a relatively new place (in fact yesterday was their first day of operations) and the kayaks were in much better conditions than Paddle Culture. The sea was very scenic and calm, coupled with the occasional flypast by mega jets, made for a wholly enjoyable morning kayaking.
The vessel of choice (ok we didnt have a choice) was the Dolphin, a short and extremely wide boat with an extra large cockpit (very comfortable). At first glance, this boat seems not worthy for the sea but once you're in the waters, you realise that it is extremely stable. In fact, so stable that you would need phenomenal effort to actually capsize while using it, and urm gavan...
Lunch was provided for (simply because we were abt 2 hrs walk away from civilisation) and everyone was kinda hungry and ate everything with much enthusiasm. Of course, the favourite food of all time was non other than the...
B1: "Are you thinking what i'm thinking B2?"B2: "You mean you actually think?!"
bananas. Such was our obsession that gerard ate 4 and we started contemplating how to steal the bananas from RV who were having camp there. Ideas included the dramatisation of a stomach ache to the creation of news that bananas are carcinogenic.
But the afternoon rowing was much much different. As if the sea decided to PMS, it became very very choppy and the waves were very powerful. That coupled with the fact that the vessel of choice (again we had no choice) was the Dancer, this narrow, light plastic playbo- uh playboat i mean. After the initial launching and everyone started swearing (swearing in ceremony indeed) at how screwed up the boat was. Of course, it didnt help that we were going against the currents and paddling for 10 minutes, you will realise that your boat is dragged back to where it started in less than 3 minutes.
However, after a while, you kinda get used to the Dancer and you actually begin to like it. I feel it has more "character", for its control requires much more skill and if you can control it well, the boat kind of becomes a part of you. Also, you begin to enjoy the bumps every wave brings and your bow strikes the water surface, releasing a sprays onto the deck. Launching and bitc-, sorry beaching up becomes a tricky but skillful manoevre.
So after more bow rudders and stern rudders (they damn fierce) and more capsizes, we ended our session with a lesson into maths. Remember: 5 min + 5 min = 20 min.
"A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner."
Roger that.
gg loved ODAC at 9:27 AM
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