Paddling with the 2nd Menai Girl Guides

This morning I went kayaking/canoeing (I did a bit of both) with the 2nd Menai Guides. Menai is the next suburb over from Caringbah, where I am currently hanging out. It was the Menai Guides who sent me the koala Nutsy, who travelled with me through most of this past summer. I'll be visiting their unit later this week to return the koala to them and share all the pictures I took. But in the meantime, canoeing!

Earlier in my blog, I'd commented on how impressed I am with the fact that the Australian Guide units own their own halls, and therefore own their own spaces to hold their meetings. Well, they own and operate a number of other facilities as well, including the water activities facility I visited today at Bindaree. I didn't take my camera (didn't want it to get wet), but you can see some pictures of the place here http://www.ssrguides.org/properties.php?&sub=bindaree. The facility is essentially a stand-alone boating garage near the shore of the Woronora River. There are a couple of Guiders who oversee the management of the building and boats, and groups can book their services as instructors to take their girls out paddling.

We had seven girls and four leaders on today's adventure. These were older Guides (I'm pretty sure most of them were as old as our Pathfinders) and were obviously experienced paddlers. Barbara, the leader who was in charge of the event, gave the girls the choice between using canoes or kayaks. Most of the girls chose to use kayaks. So we got all the gear out, took it all down to the water's edge, and away we went!

I was very impressed with the facility and equipment available to the girls. They've got a lot more kayaks than what are shown in the pictures on their webpage; some were so new they'd only been delivered the day before! They had proper paddling PFD's in all sorts of sizes and a variety of different aluminum canoe and kayak paddles. They also had a collection of water shoes (aqua socks) for the girls to use! The only thing I didn't see (although they could have been stored away somewhere) were spray skirts for the kayaks. In any case, we didn't use them.

It was a cool and very windy day, and I found myself marvelling at how lightly most of the girls were dressed. Most members of our group wore t-shirts and shorts under their PFD's - whereas I, the northern girl, was wearing my quickdry pants, wool hiking socks, a long sleeved shirt, and my windbreaker - and I was still cold! (I'm convinced my body is not adjusting so well to the weather here). We decided to head downriver, with the wind - knowing that we were going against the tide, and that we would be paddling with the tide (but against the wind) on the way back. Most of the girls were skilled kayakers and had no problems paddling. One girl was not comfortable in a kayak and travelled with one of the other leaders in a canoe.

The wind was CRAZY strong. It's been a number of years since I kayaked, but I quickly found that if I had my boat pointed in exactly the right direction, I could basically surf down the river with the wind at my back. I knew we were going to have an interesting time of it getting back to the boating shed once we turned around, and I was right! When we had to paddle back upriver, it was a real fight just to keep oriented, let alone make any progress. For the return trip, I switched places with the leader in the canoe, so she could coach some of the girls who were struggling in the wind. This put me in with the girl who wasn't so comfortable paddling. One of the leaders had taken me aside at our snack break and let me know that this girl has some special needs, so it wasn't surprising that she had such a hard time paddling. So essentially I solo paddled the two of us back upriver, in this roaring wind. (Vicky - remember the wind on the last day of the Pet? It was like that. But in an insanely tippy boat. With no keel. Hooray.)

What was interesting about the return trip was how I paddled the boat. The leader who'd paddled down in the canoe hadn't taken a canoe paddle, she'd taken a kayak paddle. I asked her why and she said that she found it much easier to use the kayak paddle when she knew that her bow paddler couldn't help out. So when I paddled back in the canoe, I had no choice but to use the kayak paddle too. It was way easier than I thought it was going to be - and in fact, using the kayak paddle is probably the only thing that allowed me to keep the boat moving in the right direction in that wicked wind! Something for us Woolsey-ites to think about for future years. The only downside was that I dripped water into my lap at each paddle stroke... so by the time we got back to the boating shed, I was more than a little wet.

Once we had all safely landed, the girls helped us pull the boats up and put everything away. Again I was really impressed with how all the girls helped out and seemed to know exactly what needed to be done. And here's something else for us Woolsey-ites to think about - they have the girls wash and dry all the boats - inside and out - after every event. So the boats always go back into their boatshed clean and dry and ready for the next group. They had a set of those puzzle piece foam mats which were brought out and set up on the grass just outside the boat shed, so the boats could be washed on the mats without getting all dirty again on the sand. Maybe we need to be looking at doing the same for our canoe camps?

At any rate, it was a great morning, even though I did come home covered in salt and feeling crusty. Hooray for tidal rivers!