The day started off bright and sunny, fabulous weather for a day out in the sea. A group of friends and colleagues had signed up for a weekend of 2-day Kayak Star-1 course. Three of us were taking it so that we might be able to take part in adventure races that required the certification. The rest had a motley mix of reasons like getting a workout or suntan. There were 23 participants in the class, some of whom had NRICs starting with "S90/ S91xxxxx"! Babies! The 3 instructors looked like they were in their twenties. They brought us through some basic theories, capsize drills and paddling techniques.
First everyone had to swim about 50m (while wearing the buoyancy vest). Then we practised getting in and out of the kayak and pushing ourselves off from the waterline. Next came the capsize drills, which were quite fun actually after one mastered the technique. The drill was for the rower to hug the kayak hull, flip ourselves over, tap the hull 3 times, and emerge from under the water. Admittedly, I did it totally wrong the first time, and had to re-try. The minute I flipped over, I automatically floated out of the cockpit. Oops, forgot to hug the hull tightly. The instructor gave me a couple of extra drills, like deliberately flipping me over, and upright again, so that I knew what it felt like. Thankfully I succeeded at the 2nd try. :) A, KC, J, C and G managed to execute the drill nicely on their first attempt. SM tapped 4 times instead of 3 and had to re-do.
The rest of the afternoon went by quickly, with a series of paddling practices - forward, backward, raft-up, front and back sweep, side J-draw and classic draw. It started raining heavily as we finished for Day 1. The last thing for us to do was to jet-spray clean the kayaks and reload them onto the storage racks.
Looking forward to Day 2 tomorrow where we could paddle further out for longer distances.
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