[Paddlewise] Kayaking Couples

When my wife and I started going out, I was more into basic lake canoeing
on quiet, misty mornings. My wife didn't enjoy it particularly, as she
found the paddling stroke too demanding on upper body strength.

Shortly thereafter we tried sea kayaking and found it a much more enjoyable
experience. After renting several times, and guided by having not read Deep
Trouble (although we had read other books) we plunged ahead and went on a
solo 5 day trip in the BC Gulf Islands. No real mishaps or drama...and lots
of enjoyment and success.....except for one little time when we HAD (??!!)
to paddle up Pender Island, against the tide and winds, along the rocky
bluff with no pull-outs. We were using a rented double, and quickly
discovered that cockpit spacing is important.

Our relationship-building opportuntiy graphically gave us the opportunity
to learn that we respond to stress/challenges in different ways, and the
failure to do it MY way is not necessarily a failure. In this instance,
when faced with hard paddling, my solution was to bear down and use more
muscle. My wife's was to increase reps. With limited space between the two
cockpits there was a slight flaw in this combined strategy, with lots of
grumpiness and little paddling progress. But we learned...

On our honeymoon we did a day paddle that required another crossing in the
Gulf Islands, and the wind came up to 25 knots or so, in the channel where
we were, and we varied from paddling into it to padlding across it. It was
alot of hard work, only problematic (for me) when we had some heavy
following seas. But it was beyond my wife's comfort zones for that time,
and really wasn't alot of FUN (as in...if it is this much stress and work,
why are we really doing this?)

On the other hand, it has given us lots of wonderful shared experiences,
and many "He said, She said" types of stories (like how big were the bow
waves from the ferry, and how close were we to them? :-) )
Sam Isaacs
saisaacs_at_netcom.ca  
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