1 star kayak weekend

We went for a 1-star kayak certificate course this weekend. 1-star course covers the basic skills in kayaking such as moving forward, turn, and even how to do a rescue when another kayak capsized. It was just so much fun. In the beginning, I was doing so horribly. The others started to turn left, but I had no idea how to turn, so I kept going forward hahaha. Luckily NK went back for me and helped me correct my course. But then afterwards, I was not able to go straight, so I had to keep stopping, correct my bearing, and go forward. Haha, and then when I tried to twist exaggeratively ala dragon boat, the kayak kept rocking dangerously, so I had to twist in moderation.

The first test was to swim 50 meters using the life vest (or Personal Floatation Device, PFD for short)... yeah, 50 meters swimming in Kallang river. Ugh yuck, the water was really dirty. I kept trying to keep my head above water, but accidentally tasted the salty water a few times. Bleh, wanted to puke it out, but ended up getting more water in my mouth. Haha, so the only thing I could do was finish the test as quickly as I could and got to dry land. Of course, it was good that I didn't see the dead rat that Ch mentioned before doing the test. Next was the capsizing drill, i.e. what you're supposed to do when your kayak capsized. It was actually quite fun when I had to do it. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. In fact, as an added bonus, the sun was really hot so it felt nice (never mind that the water is dirty. When you capsized, you don't think of such things.)

We also learned to move sideways. There were 2 techniques, J Draw and Classical Draw. To me, J Draw is much easier. To do Classical Draw, I tended to lean too much to the point of almost capsizing.

On the second day, we learned how to rescue other people when they capsized. Wow, lifting the kayak onto the boat was quite tough. I just couldn't find enough leverage to do that, so the "victim" had to help pull the kayak from the other side. But overall it was a good experience. By the end of the day, we played a game called the "Captain Ball". Basically we were divided into 2 teams and had to chase after a ball and pass them to each other until one of us are near enough to the coach to pass the ball to him. More or less similar to water polo, but with kayak, and the coach moved around from time to time, so we had to repositioned ourselves and tried to get the ball. We had to employ all of our learned skills to be able to move fast and retrieve the ball. I might have gone a bit aggressive on the game, but it was just so much fun. Of course, with that much enthusiasm, I ended up being quite reckless. As I mentioned before, whenever I did Classical Draw, I tended to lean too much. So I was drawing to reach the ball on my right, and I leaned a bit too far and I capsized. Twice in fact, hahaha. But it was really fun.