Nick Finally Learns a Trick!

Hello again its Nicholas,

Smiles from Keenerville

When I came to Keeners I had know clue what I was doing in the playboat and would jealously watch the senior Keeners do these complicated and impressive tricks. Each time they flushed off the wave I would pick their brains and try and figure out all the little details about whichever tricks they did. On tuesday, the trick that I had gotten into my head to try and "master" was the roundhouse. the roundhouse is like a shuvit with the pivot point being the bow and with the stern going no greater than forty five degrees up. After surfing corner wave a few time just to get a feel for it, I finaly decided to give it a few tries. My first two were total failures and after that I had trouble catching the wave. I talked a lot with Clay Wright and he gave me a key piece of information which was to get onto a left edge before switching to the right edge which would help me gain lots of momentum. After putting all the pieces together I finally landed it and I was STOKED!! After lunch I worked a lot with both Clay and Stephen to slowly make it more consistant. I am now quite comfortable doing this trick and am excited to learn another!!

Race Day For Nick

Hello again its Nicholas!

Getting ready for Race Day

 This past wednesday was race day for us keeners. I was in a group with Clay and Juan and a whole bunch of other keeners and we were all really excited for racing! Our first race was held on the Iron Ring. This rapid is super awesome with challenging moves and eddies to catch. Clay Juan and the rest of us eddied out above the rapid to get out to scout and find a fun and exciting race line. Finding a race line can be tricky as I found out, there are a lot of things to take into account like, what eddies to catch, what landmarks do we need to touch with our paddles, and time penalties for missing them. After we all decided on a suitable race line, we started to head down one by one. When it came to my turn I was a little nervous as to how fast I could go and wondered how well I could do. After I heard Clay yell "GO!", I launched in and started paddling hard. As i dropped into the rapid, I threw a hard stroke on my left side which propelled me forward and I suddenly found myself in the first eddy. To move past the eddy, you must use your paddle to hit this big chain on a rock. As I went to attempt this, I found myself spinning completely around and immediately dug deep with my paddle to get myself back to the chain. After successfully hitting the chain, I paddled as hard as I could back into the current to reach the opposite shore to end my time. as I looked back at Clay, he signaled to me that I had done it in 47 seconds. This was enough to win and I was extremely thrilled with my performance, although, next time I hope to improve it!

How I Became to be a Keener By Nick Markoff

Practing Playboating Drills in Warmup

It all started when I was finishing up another boring day at school, my dad came to pick me up and as I got into his old Range Rover and asked, "Do you want to kayaking with Isabel in canada for three weeks?" "Sure!" I replied. I had no clue about what I was getting myself into and I, over the next few weeks, asked my dad random questions about it either stating that he didnt know or that he would call and ask. What we did know was that it was on the Ottawa and to bring a playboat. I had been on the Ottawa river the previous year and had enjoyed myself immensely so I was really excited! On the other hand, the other piece of information I had was that I was to bring a playboat... I had never set foot in a playboat before and had seen them on rivers surfing the holes an waiting in line. My old kayaking teachers at a different camp had taught me river running and we had never spent much time surfing. When the date to leave drew nearer, I became very nervous about if I would be able to paddle this boat. When We left, we took my cousin Isabel and we drove from Maryland up to the Ottawa. After our ten hour drive ended, we went to Keenerville, my home for the next three weeks, and met Anna who was to be our keener mom. I went to bed early and woke up to "mom" banging on our door asking us if we were awake. When we had gotten our gear on, we went though the basics of playboating and I felt so off balance and out of my element, but through our instructors Steve-0, Kalob, Juan, Devyn, and Clay, I have already improved greatly and been able to start surfing and learning the basics of the tricks we are to eventually learn for the rest of the time here. I am stoked to see the progress I make throughout the next two-and-a-half weeks here!