I had a nice paddle on Saturday afternoon. My Klan mates had allocated a day to do some Greenland paddling. As I had some commitments in the morning, I met up with them half way through at Wangi Point on Lake Macquarie.
Depending on who you ask, the Greenland stick is either a high efficiency aerofoiled wing design honed by thousands of years of experience or a primitive tool, far inferior to modern day materials and computer aided designs. The truth I suspect is closer to the former than the latter, but they are certainly a different tool with different strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of which opinion you ascribe to, there are lessons to learn from the GP that are relevant to other paddle types and there is also a goodly dollop of fun to be had in the process. Every time I play with a GP I tell myself I must get one, but so far I have only borrowed them. Christmas and my Birthday are not far away though, he hints with all the subtlety of a baseball bat.
Lacking a beautifully crafted aerofoiled greenland stick of my own, I took my beautifully crafted and recently sorely neglected aerofoiled modern "wing stick" for an outing. I do find it amazing how ten kilometres with a wing paddle finds out the poor techniques that I slip back into. My personal paddling Guru, Rob Mercer, calls these paddles "a forward stroke lesson on a stick". He is so right ! I am still very much a beginner with a wing paddle but my regular forward stroke is a high angle style so the adjustments to a wing are comparatively small compared to others.
On this trip I benefited from Owen's coaching, it is such a great help to have someone else looking at your stroke. Particularly someone who actually has some knowledge of what to look for. Without the aid of a video camera, we can't really look at our own stroke and having someone paddling along beside you is a good substitute. It's also nice to concentrate on form and technique rather than power, and high cadences. As this was a very gentle and cruisy paddle, I was able to do that without falling behind.
I tend to lift my left hand too high, and let my hands drop as I rotate which shortens the stroke and lifts water at the back of it. It really helps to have someone remind me when I'm doing it. At the end of that short paddle I was really getting some improvement. It felt good. I kept Col, Tony and Shawn company back over to Swansea and then came back across to Wangi on my own. The wind was shifting into the north east and picking up a little eighteen inch wave with just enough energy to catch the odd little ride. The sun was setting in the west and out on the lake there was nothing but peace and serenity.
One of the things that wings are not very good for (there are pros and cons to every paddle type), is manoeuvring. The finer points of linking and blending strokes and sculling are not really well suited to the design. As part of my wing paddle learning curve, I took the opportunity to play with a little flat water rock hopping on the way back to the boat ramp. I was very glad to have a plastic boat as the reflection of the setting sun and flat water made it quite hard to spot the rocks until I was nearly on them. Sweep strokes with the wing work very well. Draw strokes work well too, but a little care is required if drawing on the move as the twist in the blade takes some getting used to. Still lots to work on there, too.
Back at the boat ramp, there was a gentleman washing his dog near the jetty, or perhaps he was shark fishing, it can be hard to tell....He asked me if I was worried paddling with all the hammerheads in the Lake. There are hammerhead sharks in Lake Macquarie, but they are the small scalloped hammerhead, which is not a threat to humans. There's also a healthy population of Bull Sharks, too and they certainly can be a threat to humans. The ones in the Lake, are pretty well fed though and if they were actually interested in eating people, they probably would have done it by now. I don't recall every hearing of a shark attack in the lake, although there have been instances of close encounters and kayak fishermen being harassed. Sadly it's probably only a matter of time before somebody gets bitten, and the media will have a field day, but the simple fact of the matter is that healthy ecosystems need predators. Personally, I'm delighted to see that there is enough biodiversity and fish life in the lake to support these creatures. The lake also supports a small but permanent population of dolphins too.
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