Kayaking Freaks

Lyle and I decided to do something exciting together this winter, so we signed up for a kayaking class at the University of Utah. I was really looking forward to gently paddling around the pool, just like the sea kayaks we've seen in Alaska. Well the first week I was unable to get in a kayak, but I was able to witness the panic in all the students faces as the were about to drown! The class turned out to be a river kayaking class and the first skill our lovely instructor taught that first night was the rescue roll. The person being rescued rolls the kayak so he is up-side-down in the water and pounds on the bottom of the kayak, signaling that he needs help, then someone t-bones the up-side-down kayak and the near-drowning victim attemps to right his kayak by holding onto the bow of the rescue kayak and rolling. Well, it did not work all the time. Lyle would get his mouth out of the water for just a moment and catch his breath and then finally give up and ditch the kayak. Needless to say, I was scared out of my gourd! I told the Relief Society funeral committee to be on stand-by. Lyle insisted that he was not close to anything, but he could not see his own face! That sunday Noah told me to hang on to the side of the pool and practice rolling up, but I only got really good at ditching the kayak and giving myself lovely bruises up and down my legs. Lyle is working really hard, but hip action and back-bends are not his forte! I'm thinking sea kayaking can not be this hard. The tour companies take complete novices into water that is so cold a person would die of hypothermia before anyone could execute a rescue roll! I'm counting on that.