I learned to canoe in September 1997, with the local Devenish Canoe
Club who operate from the Lakeland Forum Leisure Centre in Enniskillen.
I personally think that clubs provide an excellent environment to learn
a particular sport, and also to provide a venue to meet and become friends
with people who have similar interest to you. Although as you know from
reading my about me page I haven't had wonderful experiences within the
club environment.
One of my favorite paddling disciplines is canoe surfing, you use almost
exactly the same techniques as you do for Surf Boarding, except that you're
in a canoe. I think canoe surfing is much better than surf boarding having
tried both, because no matter how small the wave is you can usually paddle
fast enough to match the waves speed and surf it. Therefore it usually
seems to canoeists that we surf twice if not three times as many waves
in a surfing session than boardies.
Canoe Surfing seems to takes me through such a wide range of emotions,
in one session than any other sport I know. Sometimes you can feel apprehensive
paddling out towards the break line, especially when a large wave is starting
to break in front of you, but if you time the wave break right and you
paddle over it with easy you feel pleasantly surprised and smug. If however
you time it wrong, as the wave crashes towards you, you think 'oh shit'
you feel scared and brace yourself for its impact and try to hang on for
dear life, as it drags you and your boat towards the beech. At this point
if your boats still upright you feel a serious rush as you ride wildly
on the forces of nature, if your flipped (capsized) your survival instinct
kicks in and you think about self preservation. If you can Eskimo role
you can flip your boat upright again and continue on that wild ride, if
however you cant you have no other option but to bail out of your boat
and take a swim while still in the furious wave. I prefer option one but
sometimes it doesn't work out that way.
When you reach a certain personal skill level within canoe surfing,
you can actually try and harness the force of the wave in order to try
and use its energies to ride it (surf the wave). No matter how good you
are though you still get wipeouts, but when you actually get to ride a
wave, the feeling of elation and a sense of accomplishment you achieve
is unbelievable. Because for that brief period you were able to harness
the waves power, manipulate and control your boat and your body correctly
not only to give you the ride of your life, but also to be able to sense
the wave and your surroundings.
What I mean by this is when you do things right you almost gain a six
sense, and you gain a different perception or insight to those surroundings.
(E.g. in how the wave moves and how you are moving with the wave, and
how you can control how you are moving with the wave, instead of riding
out of control and at the mercy of the wave and your inability to provide
controllability for both your boat and your body reactions). It's hard
to explain but if you surf you will know what I mean, I think.
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