Round Ubin in my Feathercraft

Led the NJC Outdoor Adventure Club on a day trip around Pulau Ubin on Saturday. We started off from Ubin Chalet where the Asian Detours boats are stored.
While Kian Seng co-ordinated the students to move out the kayaks from the shed, I rushed to assemble the Feathercraft, this time, I remembered to put in the foot pedals! Took about 20min to assemble.
RX told me he once assembled one in 10mins! But that was with the help of another person.

The aim was to let the OAC leaders lead the trip on their own. I was attached to the expedition leaders and paddled in front with them. All I did was to provide the local knowledge and give them tips on leading the group.

Nice blue skies

Say "cheese"!

All in all, it was a good trip. Nice weather and following seas most of the way even though we took 5 hours to complete the entire trip...

My kayak managed to track fairly well and had no problems going straight. However, the boat would flex as it went over a wave making it quite hard to surf. Maybe next time I should try tensioning it to the maximum.

Different Methods

Coached a 1 Star course under Asian Detours today. This was my first time coaching for them and I have a feeling my teaching methods are quite different from theirs.

1st, the other instructor tried demonstrating a TX rescue to 18 students while they were not rafted up. On the 2nd try, the raft was so wide those at the ends could hardly see whats going on.

We split up after the demonstration and I took 9 kids with me. Unsure if they saw how the victim was supposed to re-enter the kayak, I did a demonstration again. I split them up into 3 groups and we started on the rescues.
My teaching style is to allow the kids to suffer a bit and experiment with what works instead of just telling them what to do from the start which would eliminate any authority on the rescuers part.
As you can guess, this might take some time...
Well, the other instructor managed to finish everything with her grp by the time I finished my first rotation.
The other instructor helped out with my group after she was done with hers. Perhaps with good intentions. But I felt it kinda messes things up and adds chaos. Especially when she just left her group hanging around.

I noticed the other instructor got the kids to demonstrate the skills one by one. I tried this once during my attachment and found that kids didnt like waiting for their turn to demonstrate the skill. Not only is it boring, it feels alot like school.

Maybe my teaching style is too casual and laidback. Its quite obvious I have a more lassier faire of coaching compared to most other coaches. Probably look like I couldnt care less. But I feel that it should be a chance for the kids to experiment. Most times the kids will tell me they cant do a TX rescue, but leave them alone long enough and they end up emptying the boat of water and performing the rescue.

Well, at the end of the day. Im glad the reluctant boy who didnt want to capsize and found 101 excuses to go back to shore had fun. And its also quite hard to forget the boy that cant stop singing and randomly spouting verses from songs like "baby, come back!"
So I guess there are some redeeming qualities about today.

New personal record

The last time I went on an kayak expedition was in 2007. Im not including the trips I've made to the Merlion because, thats not really considered a sea journey.
I decided to join the SAFYC Changi to East Coast kayaking trip organised by Asian Detours to give myself a rough idea of how I would fair in next week's round Ubin paddle. A return trip is approximately 20km, which is the farthest I have ever paddled in a day.
It took me about 1.5hrs to paddle 10km so I think the round Ubin trip will last at least 4 hours including time for lunch and rest.






Rest of the pics are here