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Surf re-entry... what went wrong?

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Thursday, 06 September 2007

A better way to attempt paddling back through the surf

A couple of weeks ago I performed a surf re-entry across the bar that connects Noosa river to Laguna Bay and those of you who watched the resulting video would know that it got a little messy. As much of a thrill as it was, I'd rather avoid having that happen again. I've had a fair bit of advice on how to go about doing it better from several people now, not just on how to avoid getting dumped, but also on what measures to take to avoid getting hooked or skewered. In hind sight, the sheer amount of mistakes I made there was pretty significant and with that in mind, I've been paying attention to the advice that's been coming in.

Obviously opinions will differ on the subject because as with all other aspects of kayak fishing, there seems to be several ways to skin that cat. I think the best summary of advice I've been given to date has come from KayakFishingStuff.com member Jesse Johnston, who responded to a post I made there in the 'mistakes I've made' section titled 'surf re-entry gone bad'. I've copied what he had to say below. This is advice I'm taking on board. Just as soon as this weather clears up I'll be out there doing a bunch of practice runs in an attempt to master the manuever.

Moving forward will drop the nose of the board/yak and help slip the vehicle into the wave, but once you start to drop in, you need to shift your weight back to avoid a pearl (digging the nose of the board/yak into the bottom of the trough and getting pitched off the board/yak.)
to avoid getting broached, (which is what happened to you by the way, you nearly pearled twice but you would have been fine had you kept the bow pointed straight in.) you will need to forget about the rudder when surfing in a kayak - in fact you should stow it before you get into the surf zone. it'll just screw you up if there is enough water on it to steer - and like as not there won't be enough water on it to steer anyway. you will need to use your paddle to steer. drag your paddle on the side you want your bow to turn to, but be careful a little bit of drag can go a long way when it comes to tweaking the bow around a little. also be aware that the mount of force on the paddle will require quite a good grip to avoid having the paddle getting ripped from your hands.

just in case you start to get picked up by a wave and don't want to surf it, you almost always abort the pickup by dragging your paddle deep "snap snap" right and left while simultainously leaning as far back and as quickly (to the point of almost laying down and banging your head on the crate) as possible.