Kayak Demo Night

As I mentioned, several of us SKOAC'ers acted as safety boaters last night at the kayak/canoe demo on Lake Calhoun. Many renowned bloggers were in attendance including RonO, RonS, Alex, Aras, and myself. It was a boring night with only one real deep water capsize in a solo canoe. The guy was testing the secondary stability and found out precisely how much there was. The selection of boats to test paddle was fairly disappointing. Lots of rec boats on the Eddyline/CD Kestrel mode. The British must have offended us or something because other than a stray Romany or two there were no Valley or P&H boats like there were last year. Nothing to trigger my "I need that boat" synapses. After RonO and I found the free hot dogs we climbed back into the boats and paddled out, hoping that 8pm would arrive so we could quench our parched throats at the local establishment. Safety boating is like watching paint dry or a bridge rust. I've never been a lifeguard but it must be the same, only there you get a few scantily clad bodies to distract you from time to time. The boredom was broken when Alex decided to do a couple of rolls. Its difficult to see rookies in distress when upside down but I guess watching the paint and the bridge had gotten to him. As a boy when I did something that was not quite in line with conventional etiquette I would tell my mom, "But Danny did it!". Her inevitable reply would be, "If Danny went out and played in the middle of Highway 12 would you do it too!?" My usual smart assed answer was, "of course I would". So I reached in my day hatch and exchanged my life jacket (pfd indeed!) with its safety oriented knife, tow belt, whistle, etc for my tuliq and was quickly inverted also. I glanced over at RonO and RonS and saw hats being stowed and neoprene hoods being tugged on. This actually pleased some of the rookie test paddlers. As I was doing a side scull, a father in a canoe with his small son asked me if I could do a 'full roll'. I told him I normally only do command performance rolls for sailboaters with cold imported beer but that I would make an exception for youth education. When I came up the little boy had a big grin on his face and that "I'm gonna do that someday" look in his eye. Kinda made the evening worthwhile. The Newcastle was good later too!