Hoeked on paddling in South Africa

My journey across an ocean and across the equator wasn't too bad, all things considered.  The only major problem was that one of my checked bags didn't travel from Johannesburg to Cape Town on the same plane I did, and as a result I had to spend most of my first day here without it.  It made for sort of a rough adjustment, having to deal with that on top of the usual jet lag and the unfamiliarity with the town and the strange currency and the exotic culture and everything else.  But I'm settling in, little by little.  I'm actually quite impressed with South African Airways because in the end they delivered the bag right to my bed & breakfast here in Fish Hoek, some 20 miles from the Cape Town Airport.  I can't in a million years imagine one of the U.S.-based airlines providing such a service.

There was one bad thing, though: I'd packed my Go Pro camera in that bag, and as I unpacked the bag here in my room I realized that it had been stolen.  The camera was almost ten years old--I think it was a Hero 2 or some such old clunker model--so I'm not particularly heartbroken to lose it.  There certainly were other things in that bag that I cared a lot more about than that camera.  But still, it's a bummer not to have it for shooting a vid or two out on the Miller's Run.  I suppose I ought to report the theft to South African Airways, but honestly, I'm so weary of dealing with airlines and airports by now that my heart really isn't into doing so.  For all I know, the thing could have been ripped off back in Atlanta, where I took a United flight to get to DC.

As for paddling, it began on an introductory note yesterday morning.  Dawid had me participate in a beginning surfski class that he teaches on a regular basis down at the Fish Hoek beachfront.  He was apologetic about doing that since I'm not really a beginner, but I didn't mind at all.  I've found that there are always opportunities to learn, no matter the level of instruction.  In this case I benefitted greatly from Dawid's demonstration of his method for launching into the shore break on the beach: it was much simpler and more logical than whatever methods I'd used on my own in the past.  Keep in mind that Memphis is pretty far inland, meaning that I don't paddle at the beach very often, and so in many ways I am a beginner in that environment.

Yesterday afternoon Dawid and I paddled a tandem surfski on the Miller's Run.  Having doubled with Dawid last summer in the Columbia River Gorge, I figured I was in for a physically demanding session.  But I didn't feel too exhausted when it was over.  I definitely was fresher going into today's run, while that run we did last summer was my second of that day.

But the conditions were impressive indeed, especially around the Roman Rock lighthouse five kilometers from the finish at Fish Hoek Beach.  At one point Dawid said, "A bit bigger than Swell City (the site of the biggest swells on the Columbia Gorge run), isn't it?  Hanging on for dear life behind him in the stern seat, I could say little more than "Yes, I believe you're right."

I turned in before 9 o'clock last night, partly because I'm still getting adjusted to South Africa Time, and partly because Dawid wanted to pick me up at 7 o'clock this morning to go paddling.  That's much earlier than I care to go at home, but hey, when the winner of multiple Molokai titles says we're going at seven, we're going at seven.

The wind was lighter this morning and the swells were smaller out on Miller's Run.  Dawid and I paddled single skis and he coached me on the various technical aspects of downwind paddling.  I felt like a champ at times and like a chump at other times, but overall I think it was a productive session.  One of my goals for this trip is to develop a better "eye" for the conditions, and with Dawid's help I learned to recognize a few things that I'd been oblivious to in the past.

My fuel tank hit rock bottom toward the end of the run.  I guess that's not a huge surprise, seeing as how my ability to train was limited over the previous six weeks.  But it was frustrating, just the same.  Back when I was racing whitewater slalom I learned that one of the most shameful things an athlete can do is "snit"--that is, give up on a run and stop paddling.  I was very tempted to snit as we approached Fish Hoek Beach this morning, but Dawid kept encouraging me to go after the small runs and get as much aid from them as possible, and somehow I found the strength to do that even though my stroke form had fallen apart completely.

Dawid wanted to meet for another session at 2 o'clock this afternoon, so I went back to the bed & breakfast to spend a few hours rehydrating, eating, stretching, and resting.  When 2 o'clock rolled around the wind was not there for us, so we made it a wave session at Fish Hoek Beach.  One of the main things Dawid wanted me to practice was feeling the precise moment when a wave begins to carry me.  It's at this moment, he said, that I should stop paddling and let the wave do the work.  And here I began to realize just why I had gotten so worn out this morning: Dawid had to keep yelling at me to stop paddling each time a wave had me.  I'd been doing the same thing this morning, and all that unnecessary paddling took its toll.  I'd long had a general feeling that I was working twice as hard to go half as fast as the more accomplished downwind racers, and these lessons today brought that issue more into focus for me.  We'll likely do more wave sessions as this coming week goes on, and see if I can improve my sensory skills in this area.

In many ways my whitewater background is an asset during a wave session.  I've punched many a hole on a whitewater river, and so paddling out into the surf wasn't all that intimidating today.  But just like a river hole or wave can occasionally give me a beat-down, so can a big breaking wave at the beach.  Toward the end of our session I smacked hard into an enormous breaker, and it knocked me off my ski and relieved me of the day-glo Outdoors Inc. hat that Joe gave me last summer.  Dawid spotted it and got it back to me.  If I'd been wearing one of my earth-tone lids, it probably would have been lost forever.


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