Today was an interesting day on the creek. My buddy Andy and I have moved our fledgling group of young kayakers from the pool to the pond to the creek. The water temp is always chilly at Spring Creek, and the added element of moving water (currents and eddies) makes navigation a little more tricky than the pond. Currents and eddies don’t always play fair.
After reviewing our safety instructions, we teach our students how to move from the calm water (eddy) out into and across the current. If they aren’t in control of their boats, students usually find themselves upside down in the cold water. The current will push them places they don’t want to go, grab an edge of their kayak and flip them over. Like most of life, some new kayakers get the hang of it easily while others struggle with the learning curve. Knowing how to navigate the line between still water and moving water is a learnable skill, but some learn more quickly than others.
Today I was working with a young man who missed our last class. I carefully explained that he wanted to keep the bos (front) of his kayak pointed at 11 in order to cross from one side to the other. Point it upstream so that the water will slip by. If you show too much profile to the current, you’ll get swept downstream. Keep your upstream edge raised so that the water slides under the boat; dip the upstream edge and you’ll get flipped over. I asked if he understood my instructions. I crossed the current a couple of times to show him what I meant, then gave him the go-ahead to try it himself.
He pulled out into the current with the nose of his boat pointed at the opposite shore–that’d be 9 on the dial. The current grabbed him. He dipped his upstream edge and was quickly transformed from a kayaker into a swimmer! He followed our safety instructions and exited the kayak, but the cold temperature and surprise took his breath away. He came up sputtering and gasping for air–cold, wet, a little scared, but OK. His lean frame doesn’t carry much insulation against the cold, and he was immediately shivering like crazy (he might want to eat a twinkie or 2!)
We got him out of the water and chased down his gear, then talked about what happened. Turns out that he didn’t know what I meant by “point your boat at 11.” He said that he understood, but he really didn’t. I hope that he learned a lesson today.
When you don’t know what to do, or don’t understand the instructions, it’s far better to ask someone and reveal your lack of knowledge. If you don’t, for whatever reason, your lack of knowledge will usually be revealed, and sometimes it will cost you more than the embarrassment of admitting that you don’t know something.
That being said, does anyone around State College have any experience with wiring/soldering electronics? I want to build a small tube amplifier. I’ve started buying parts and reading about the process. Almost every web page or article that I read starts with a warning: Be careful! The voltage stored in the things you are working with can kill you!
I would really like to avoid killing myself while learning to build this amp. Anybody want to teach me how? I’ll trade you some kayaking lessons!
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