[Paddlewise] First Overnight; Paddling Advice Please

Hello folks! I am just back from my first overnight kayaking trip. I am so
just back that I am not showered and none of my stuff is either hanging to
dry or in the washer, which shows how eager I am to e-mail. The punchline
of the weekend is that we had a wonderful time, and plan to have an even
better time next trip, when we will have tent poles as well as a tent. Did
you know you can use half your paddle as a tent pole to hold up a
two-person dome tent (some very intricate cordage to the local trees did
the rest of the work)? I pass this info along as it may be potentially
useful to you at some point.

Here's the advice I want: I am a _way_ beginner paddler, and we were on a
Class 1 river yesterday and today. The only problem I encountered was
"spinning out" on turns. The current was pretty swift (by my standards) and
I found early on that, as I was going around bends, the current would push
my stern so that the boat would swing and I would end up sidewise to the
river. I figured out eventually that if I anticipated this happening and
used my paddle as a rudder to counter the force of the current on my stern,
I did better, and would swing through the turn and end up facing downstream
(though if I waited too long, and the boat was already beginning to spin
out before I ruddered, there was too much braking action and I lost
momentum). I feel that I figured out a workable solution that saved me a
lot of frustration over the two days' trip, but I'd love to hear from more
experienced paddlers how you anticpate and deal with this phenomenon, if
you don't mind taking a few minutes to enlighten a relative beginner.

We plan to do another overnight on the same river in July, and will have
some friends with us who are even more beginning than I am; I would love to
have some tips to pass on to them.

Su Penn

p.s. This was in Michigan, where that canoeist has just been conviected
(yes, convicted, as of, I think, yesterday. But not sentenced yet) of
criminal profanity in front of children. I'm sorry to say I am guilty under
the same law; taking out at a boat launch at the end of the trip, I slipped
on the slimy sloped bottom and uttered a four-letter word in the presence
of three boys about ten years old who were hunting crawdads nearby. They
forgave me when I apologized, but I wonder if that would have been a
mitigating circumstance at my trial?


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