Re: [Paddlewise] Inappropriate For Modern Kayaking - Freaks in Training?

On 11/8/06, Derek <glamourpets_at_yahoo.com> wrote:

> I like to look at this more in terms of skill level.
> Does having a high skill level and pushing one's
> limits make them a freak?
>

I wonder if "skill level" has a place on a freak-o-meter. It doesn't take
much skill to tie a bungee-cord to your legs and jump off a bridge. Enough,
perhaps, to know how to tie the knots and calculate the length of cord,  But
it certainly rates high on my freak-o-meter <he says, tapping the dial>.

For some people just discerning a skill is difficult and they have to be
trained to it. Pole-vaulting is an obvious skillset but a high-brace on the
face of a breaker is probably not so obvious. A roll is an obvious skill but
reading the water isn't. And then there are downsides to the obvious skill
that makes people degrade them. "Cold and wet" are the  downsides to a roll
and I'm thinking that there are a lot of folks who wouldn't want to learn to
do it based just on that.

And how useful is the skill? I'd bet that not one single person who owns the
kayaks I see on the beaches and docks of my lake can roll them; or even
brace. That is a skill that they just don't recognize because they don't
ever need it.

But even so, the people on the Deception Pass bridge watching sea kayakers
playing in the boils and eddies below can certainly appreciate the skills on
display. For most they are remote and essentially useless skills. But a few
will say "oh, cool!" and start down the road.

And every weekend that I'm out on the salt water I meet someone who is very
good and very skillful and has no clue that Paddlewise exists; nor cares.
I'd guess that my brother-in-law, who has paddled solo from Everett to S.E.
Alaska, doesn't take Sea Kayaker. I know he doesn't read Paddlewise. I think
that a solo paddle like that is truly freaky. But I know he thought *I* was
the freak because I'd willingly lead on our rock climbing expeditions 30
years ago and even climb without ropes or any protection (although not
anything really serious).

So maybe it takes very careful calibration of the freak-o-meter to determine
just who is what and when. :)


Craig Jungers
Not so Freaky in Royal City, WA
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