Water Week

My week at grad school has gone something a little like this: becoming a canoe instructor and getting wilderness water safety certified. A week of water training. In and out of canoes, in and out of the lake. Luckily it was sunny for most of it.

I always assumed that canoeing was this lumbering antiquated way to cross a lake. It was really for those who hadn't discovered kayaks yet. I always thought that kayaks were much easier to handle in the water and went better. Steve at River Sport Adventures definitely showed me wrong. Our beginning course went far beyond anything that I had ever learned at summer camp. We were doing figure 8's, going backwards, learning the best techniques to make paddling easier and we were of course having fun. We spent all day in the canoes from about 9am until 4:30. I got a few blisters on my palms from the paddles but with them just about to worn raw I got my certification. We also did tip tests and T- rescues. A tip test is when you try to flood your canoe while still maintaining a level of control if you've done it right you will still be sitting in your sunken canoe. A T- rescue is what you might use when a canoe has capsized and dumped it's passengers. Another canoe, or two canoes that are still upright will come over and link up creating a raft. They will create the top part of a T shape to the sunken canoe. One of the people who dumped their canoe will stand on the end of the swamped canoe away from the rafted ones. This will cause the tip of the canoe to go in the air. The passengers in the upright canoes will drag the canoe onto their own and once it is fully out of the water they will flip it, and put it back in. Now the hard part comes in, getting the dunked canoers back into their now upright canoe. There are a few ways to do this and none of them are graceful. All of them involve your canoe fighting back and giving you lots of bruises. The canoes just had to remind us of how stupid we were to flip them in the first place. However after two very tiring days that was done.

Then we had a day of rest, and did paperwork while our muscles stopped screaming.

It was then time for Wilderness Water Safety! We all basically became backcountry lifeguards. I have never been to a lifeguard certification class before. Honestly the thought of saving someone in the water is downright terrifying. It still is. I've actually avoided getting lifeguard certified so that I wouldn't ever have to feel like I was the responsible one. I learned how to successfully carry another person into shore, how to find them on the bottom of a muddy lake and still I feel that everyone should be wearing their life jacket... even while swimming. 12 people in the water at once is a huge deal. just wear your life jacket and make it easy on me. Thinking back on some of the things I've done makes me cringe.

Overall good week of training and lots of knowledge that was passed on. Thanks grad school for seeing that this was valuable to our training and knowledge bank!