Learning to Roll a Yak

March 21^st, 2015

I have to admit that I was feeling a little sore after the hydrospeeding with a sore neck, back and partially pulled pectoral, however it may be a long time until I’m back in San Gil so I had to make the most of it.  Since I already paraglide a lot and recently went river rafting I figured the thing to try was river kayaking.  Now I own an ocean kayak back home, have so for 12-13 years but those are like yachts compared to the little plastic boats that tackle the rapids.  My main goal was to learn how to roll a kayak but also get a little taste of this wild sport.

The evening before I wandered down to another one of Colombia River Raft Company’s offices to watch an introduction movie on how to roll a yak.  It was pretty cheesy in parts but did lay out some good principles.

I had to be at their other office bright and ugly in the morning, 8am, early for me these days.  The weather was not helping to entice me out of bed as it was overcast with the occasional splash of rain.  It’s going to be a cold morning…I sure hope they give me a wetsuit!

The shuttle van took me and my guide, a local named William, to the equipment shed where we tossed a couple of kayaks on the vehicle, grabbed our gear and headed off for an outdoor swimming area.  It was a little resort place where a river flowed a large, partially man made pool and then trickled out the other side.  The place was closed but I gather the kayak company has an agreement set up with them as we pushed our boats through a hole in the fence and spent the next 2 ½ hours there alone.

All excited...

Their storage shed (note the red hydrospeed boards on the right):

After explaining to William about my sea kayaking experience he still walked through explaining the equipment, albeit fairly quickly.  All of it was familiar to me until he showed me where to put the kayak on the dock, with the nose 1/3 the way out over the water, get in and launch off of the one and a half foot drop.  Okay, well this is new.  My kayak at home is made of composite material, not plastic so it’s not a great idea to scrape your yak across the dock.  I placed my boat, got in, did up the spray skirt and jumped in.  The nose completely went under and I was splashed up to the face but it was great fun.

William first had me paddle around to ascertain my skill level.  I guess I did alright as we moved on to the initial rolling exercises.  First you start without a paddle, in order to eliminate some variables.  At first he held my hands on one side of the boat and I rotated the boat so my body was at the water level with my head just out of the water and I practiced using my hips to control the kayak.  The next progression was to go right upside down and attempt to roll back up while holding his hands.  You’d think it wouldn’t be a big deal being inverted underwater but everything seemed backwards, confusion reigned.  I easily forgot what was left and what was right…which way am I turning?  I flipped upside down countless times, enough times that when we took our first break about an hour into the session I had trouble walking on land…I felt dizzy!

I didn’t think I was ready for it but William passed me my paddle, the last piece of the equation, and explained to me the set up position and sweeping motion required in synchronization with my torso and head motion and kicking of the hips.  Soon I started to roll back up, with some assistance from William but about half an hour later I finally started to get it, not every time but enough that there was a big smile on my face and some high fives with my teacher.  It was now time to head to the river.

My yak warrior pose:

The truck picked us up and Jannick, one of my hydrospeeding buddies, was already inside along with a few other tourists who were going rafting.  I didn’t realize it at first but Jannick was also going river kayaking.  He had some previous experience so he and his guide started further up the river while William and I practiced in a calm eddy pool.  I worked on slowly pushing out into the flowing water and I did have a few scares of almost rolling over.  It’s counterintuitive but if you are at a right angle to the flowing water you tilt your hips downstream to the flow in order to let the current go under your boat.  I initially thought that this would provide a bigger surface area to the water that would push you over but no, it’s the opposite.

Jannick and his guide appeared and we all set off together.  The section of the river we were tackling was only class 1 and 2 with a bit of 2+ (and for that William and I rafted together).  I didn’t feel totally comfortable in the yak at first but I slowly relaxed as we floated downstream.  In a couple of calm sections I tried a few rolls, getting one out of three attempts.  On the ones where I wasn’t successful, I would let go of the paddle while still inverted and stick my hands up out of the water.  William would bring the nose of his kayak to one of my hands and then I would pull myself up.  This was much easier than popping out of the cockpit and having to go to the side of the river to get back in.

Pleased at the end with my great instructor William:

We finished our short river run at the same spot as the hydrospeeding, at the company’s storage garage.  I was pretty exhausted and ready to get dry but I was super pleased with the morning’s activities.  Hmm…is river kayaking yet another adventure sport I’m going to get sucked into…maybe, just maybe…