Silver Case

I’ve given my Fujita kayak some heavy abuse recently and when I get back to Singapore I think it’s time to do some restoration and repair to it.

• All the fittings are totally salt-encrusted from so much immersion and rolling. It needs a serious cleaning
• One front sub-structure #2, there is a metal receptor bolted on that connects to an Inner Stringer.  The nut worked its way off and now all I have left is the bolt. I need to find a nut with the right size to reattach this permanently.
• I need to add padding to the some of the stringers to tighten my fit into the canoe. Sometimes I sit a bit sloppy in the cockpit and am not locked in very well.
• The Keepers footbraces are loosening up after some especially vigorous roll-attempts, I was popping the foot pegs off the rails. This sucks.  I am hoping that by re-tightening the rails everything will fit together more strongly.
• Check hull.  It’s got a lot of nasty scrapes on it, but I don’t think there are any serious breeches.
• Consider varnishing some of the more abused sections of wood pieces on the boat.  Through negligence and violence I’ve managed to bash up various parts of the boat and I am a bit concerned that over time the moisture will ruin the marine plywood.

Had my last rolling session of the trip today.  Everything worked together better today, I managed to roll it out once or twice, but it’s still not burnt in yet. It annoys me, but on the other hand, my bracing is a lot stronger now and I can lean the boat quite substantially, so I am even less likely to flip it anyway.

Only problem is that I am not sure how to continue learning this back in Singapore.  Practicing it by myself is pretty tough (exhausting to continually be wet-exiting the boat and having to get back in).  I may be able to get ling to help me with some assists, but she won’t see where I am going wrong.  I am hesistant to even bother trying to find an instructor in Singapore.  I detest instruction as taught in Singapore.  It’s almost always bad.

I didn’t have any energy left by the end of the day anyhow, so glad to have stopped. As I’m sitting here typing this, I’m tired, I’ve got a giant bruise on my hip, and I feel vaguely dizzy/post-seasick.  (I must have spun upside down at least fifty times today doing various exercises). I’m also damn hungry, so I am going out to eat some korean next door.  Hopefully it is good.

Irritating fucking day.  Thought I was —>|  |<— this close to rolling my Fujita (So did Rob).   Alas I seem to have deteriorated.  Rob said I was doing the component steps better than I did the first day, but somehow when I was upside-down underwater syncing them all together wasn’t coming together. I managed one roll only.  I don’t want to leave here not learning how to have rolled properly, so I booked another three-hour session tomorrow. He is going to teach in a different pattern tomorrow, pedagogically, and I am going to watch a video I have for rolling, and hopefully it will all click tomorrow.

I paddled his fiberglass Impex sea kayak. It’s a lot more lively than my boat and I can lock myself in tighter. One thing I’m going to do when I get back to Singapore is put some padding to tighten up my interior so that I get more positive connection to the boat.

Tonight Lee is bringing a colleague back for dinner.  I’m going to make a spinach risotto.  Starter will be some combination of guacomole (I have a lot of avocados), asparagus wrapped in Italina prosciutto, or melon and prosciutto. Or all of it, I don’t know.  Desert will be a shortbread pastry with some mango and custard I think.

The ISP I am using here is a piece of shit. It seems to block nearly every port I try to use. Even my flickr and picasa uploading tools are being firewalled.  Irritating, but I am tired and not in the mood to get into the router and make it behave.

Went to bed accompanied by a massive electrical storm.  Singapore is
supposed to have more lightning strikes per square meter than most places, but
last night’s display was impressive by any standard.  Bolts were
reaching across entire sectors of the sky, the thunder arriving a dozen
seconds later.

It had abated by the time I woke up to go kayaking today.  There were
low, grey, thick  stratocumulus clouds of the type that means it’s going
to spit drizzle and rain all day.   Except it wasn’t raining.

Went to Rose Bay for the first of two tuition sessions on rolling my
Fujita kayak.  Rob Mercer teaches very effectively.  He has lots of
educational steps progressing to rolling the boat and gives many
explanations and descriptions for each step.  As he said, “you learn
nothing underwater,”  you need to have learned all the steps before
you’re underneath the boat.

And I did get underneath the boat.  I had expected a more thrashing,
panicky sort of motion, but it’s actually very controlled and smooth.
My boat especially, because it’s a wide-beamed folding kayak, has a slow
rolling motion. Smoothness and synchronization of paddle and hips and
knees is the trick, not violent thrashing.

As far as the water goes, yeah, I got a lot of it in my head.  It filled
my ears, filled my nose, and rinsed the sunscreen off my face. It made
my sinuses flow like mad.  I kept snorting and blowing out some hideous
white foam, as if I had rabies.  He told me to get a snorkel-style mask
for our session on Wednesday, because it makes it easier to fine-tune my
paddle position underwater, etc.

When I finished up I found my face and arms quite burnt.  Remember I
said that the cloud cover was thick and low?  Didn’t make a difference.
As the radio meteorologist said, “UV Severity index today: EXTREME“.

Wednesday is my second session.  Rob had me stop on a high note to day.
I’m 99% to rolling the thing on my own, but he spotted me tiring out
and said I should stop earlier than later.  I am drooling to get out
again on Wednesday and do more rolls. We’re also going to practice
sculling (some way to be sideways in the water for an extended period,
popping up as I desire)