RE: [Paddlewise] River Death from July

I once failed to roll on the first try because my full brim hat, that was
strapped under my chin to keep it from blowing off, acted like a bucket once I
lifted my head out of the water. One of the pictures of the victim made me
think that the flared helmet could certainly act like a bucket

I've never had any trouble with baggy sleeves, but when I first got a drysuit
I wasn't squeezing enough air out of it when I put it on. the air in it acted
like multiple PFD's, in that, when I was knocked over in the surf my torso
would be floated over to one side. No problem if that was the side I wanted to
roll up on. If it wasn't I would find myself in a catch 22 situation. While I
could roll on either side, the catch was that in the process of moving my
paddle to roll on the other side I would end up also flipping my torso over to
the wrong side again, and again, and again. Each time I tried to switch sides
with the paddle my torso would switch sides to the new wrong side as well.

I solved the problem by putting two life jackets on in the practice pool and
working on finding a solution. After many failed attempts in the deep end of
the pool I found myself in the shallow end of the pool where I couldn't reach
the paddle downward to try to scull myself over to the other side like i had
been trying. The solution turned out to be quite simple. If you find yourself
floated up on the wrong side from how you are set up to roll simply take a
short paddle stroke across the deck with the blade perpendicular to the deck
(from the start of the screw roll position). That flips your body over so it
floats up on the other side from where it was. Next feather your paddle and
slip it back under your deck while keeping the blade parallel to your deck.
That puts you back in the roll start position on the side where it will be
especially easy to roll because you are floating on the surface on that side
already.
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