Today was another milestone in my young childs life. She capsized her kayak on the paddle to the beach. Some drama appeared but not the kind I or you might have pictured.
We had prepared for a capsize to happen by visiting the public swimmingpool along the winter. I urged her to do jumps and dives on deep water while I stood by to pick her up. I urged her to blow bubbles in the water. She never really wanted to do a dive other than as a jump from the pool edge. Her favourite was to imitate watergymnastics from the neighboring pool, or dance to music. She does swim with some boyancy aid. That's it!
This tipping happended fairly much because she reached for the water with her right hand and went over. Holding tight with her left hand to the paddle she managed to momentarily go under the water. By holding on to the paddle and working herself up with her left hand, and with the PFD she kept herself with nose and mouth above the water. She screamed! She was clearly in distress. "MY COCKPIT IS TAKING IN WATER!!" I was expecting her to cough at least a little, but no. Her main concern was the water in the cockpit. I used the sponge and had it dried up soon enough, and we paddled ashore. She made the last meters on her own. No trauma.
Time for a swim/play in shallow water and then we paddled back home. She did the first 100 meters by her own, and the remaining 500 meters she wished for a tow.
For anyone reading this and considering similar exercizes with their toddler, I would strongly urge them to first develop their own control of their boat. When your toddler has capsized it is not adviceable to use many seconds to position yourself for an assist. My guess is she was less than 6 seconds in a capsized position, maybe 4. Experience with older paddlers tells me when someone is going to capsize, and I am quite often on the move already when they go. For a toddler a first traumatic capsize is likely to affect her relationship with boating for the rest of her life.
Perhaps she decided to do a capsize. All previous tours were done without the spraydeck. This was the first time using it. Or maybe it made her moves too stiff and connected to the boat deck. Have to look into that, and perhaps design a pfd that goes better together with the spraydeck.
I think we will have fun and play with some edging tomorrow.
We had prepared for a capsize to happen by visiting the public swimmingpool along the winter. I urged her to do jumps and dives on deep water while I stood by to pick her up. I urged her to blow bubbles in the water. She never really wanted to do a dive other than as a jump from the pool edge. Her favourite was to imitate watergymnastics from the neighboring pool, or dance to music. She does swim with some boyancy aid. That's it!
This tipping happended fairly much because she reached for the water with her right hand and went over. Holding tight with her left hand to the paddle she managed to momentarily go under the water. By holding on to the paddle and working herself up with her left hand, and with the PFD she kept herself with nose and mouth above the water. She screamed! She was clearly in distress. "MY COCKPIT IS TAKING IN WATER!!" I was expecting her to cough at least a little, but no. Her main concern was the water in the cockpit. I used the sponge and had it dried up soon enough, and we paddled ashore. She made the last meters on her own. No trauma.
Time for a swim/play in shallow water and then we paddled back home. She did the first 100 meters by her own, and the remaining 500 meters she wished for a tow.
For anyone reading this and considering similar exercizes with their toddler, I would strongly urge them to first develop their own control of their boat. When your toddler has capsized it is not adviceable to use many seconds to position yourself for an assist. My guess is she was less than 6 seconds in a capsized position, maybe 4. Experience with older paddlers tells me when someone is going to capsize, and I am quite often on the move already when they go. For a toddler a first traumatic capsize is likely to affect her relationship with boating for the rest of her life.
Perhaps she decided to do a capsize. All previous tours were done without the spraydeck. This was the first time using it. Or maybe it made her moves too stiff and connected to the boat deck. Have to look into that, and perhaps design a pfd that goes better together with the spraydeck.
I think we will have fun and play with some edging tomorrow.
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