Last winter, I enrolled in the kayaking pool classes provided by the Lehigh Valley Canoe Club (LVCC). After 10 winter sessions full of basic kayaking strokes on calm water, such as forward stroke, sweep, brace, and of course the Eskimo roll, which I only have 10% of success rate right now, our dearest instructor John decided to put us on moving water to practice some river reading techniques and river strokes before we actually head to any real white water.
The place we went is called Little Lehigh Creek, located in Little Lehigh Park in Allentown, PA. This is an excellent place for practicing river kayaking. Just within a range about 2-3 miles long, this creek has several different platforms, which means there are many drops and different kinds of rapids. Furthermore, the LVCC put some artificial obstacles in the river to simulate the rocks in a real river. Therefore, people can just walk and carry their boats back and forth to practice so many river skills again and again.
Besides the basic moving forward, backward and sideways, on a river, there are these important strokes: ferry, eddy turn and peel out.
The name ferry comes from a kind of boat which ferries and carries passengers from bank to bank. The technique of ferry is: say, you face upstream, if you want to go to the river left, then point your boat to about 1-o’clock direction; if you want to go to the river right, then point your boat to about 11-o’clock direction, and paddle forward. The movement of your boat and that of the stream will lead the boat across the river. You can draw the directions of these two different movements on a piece of paper and you will find out that ferry is simply a direct outcome of basic physics.
Talking about eddy turn and peel out, first we have to say what an eddy is. Generally speaking, an eddy is a calm river area. For example, suppose there is a rock in the river, and because the water flow is blocked by that rock, the area behind the rock is smoother than the main water flow, and is called an eddy. There are many reasons to form an eddy, such as river curves, obstacles, and a shallow river bed. The line which separates an eddy and the main water flow is called an eddy line, sometimes it is obvious but sometimes it is vague, and an eddy line does not stay statically just as a river is always running. An Eddy line divides water into two categories: rapid and calm, it also indicates the change of direction of the water flow. At an eddy, the water is going upstream, or I should say the opposite direction of the main flow.
Entering an eddy from the stream is called an eddy turn, and exiting an eddy and returning the stream is called a peel out. It is important to know how to tilt one’s boat, if he/she wants to manage an eddy turn and peel out. We have to always make sure that the water is hitting the bottom of our boats; otherwise the force of the water would just turn our boats over. We experience a direction change of water while we pass through an eddy line, therefore how to tilt our boats becomes very critical. This movement is very similar to turning a bike or curving a pair of skis going down a slope, in practice. Another good point is to watch the angle to cut in the eddy line, it is taught that 45 degrees is the best, but as mentioned above an eddy line is not always friendly, therefore, the more experience you have the better you will apply these techniques. John said that the difference between a beginner and an intermediate is how well one reads the water, not how strong his strokes are.
The sun was nice and warm on that day, but the water was extremely freezing. I believed that it would be cruel to dip myself in the water so I paddled conservatively with too much caution. My classmates Dave and Sandy, however, did not care as much as I did and I kept hearing their crazy laughter and I witnessed several of their wet exits. This reminded me how much fun that was and made me regret being such a coward. Last summer, I went to Jerry’s 2-day kayaking class, and on the 2nd day Jerry took the whole class under a bridge in the Lehigh River to practice eddy turns and peel outs. I tried several times, and the last time my boat tilted over on me before I could even understand why; I couldn’t roll so I did a wet exit. That was fun and exciting and that was summer.
Picture: My classmate Sandy and her little blue kayak