I guess Hudson river is the nearest place to kayak in Manhattan. And it is good for beginner, since the river is not dangerous.
I went kayak last week for the first time in my life. It was a basic paddling class, but the instructor didn’t really teach much. But that doesn’t stop the fun of kayaking.
The beginning is the hardest. And for kayak, the beginning is to get into the kayak. Even though I had two people to hold the kayak for me, I didn’t get into it easily. And after they let me go, I felt I was shaking, and the kayak was shaking with me. As the kayak was narrow, shaking left and right really made me felt like I was going to fail into water any minute.
Lucky that the shaking only lasted for a feel seconds. And when I started paddling, the kayak went smoothly. Later I learnt that even though I shook intentionally, as long as I didn’t lose balance, I wouldn’t get into water.
I practiced going straight and turning. It wasn’t hard and the kayak went fast when there was no flow. But later the instructor let us go against the flow. And that was hard. I couldn’t even keep my kayak go straight. It was turning left or right. And I felt that I could never get there.
The greatest fun came with an accident. I was wearing sun glasses and hat to protect myself from sunshine. And when a strong wind came, my hat was browed into water. Lucky for me was that the hat flowed on the water instead of sinking, so it gave me time to rescue it. I started chasing my hat in the kayak. That was really a great practice to go straight and turn. Many times I got passed it and didn’t get a chance to catch it. Time passed and I got worried because I knew the hat would eventually sink into the water when it absorbed enough water. But I got better with my control of the kayak, too. Needless to say, I caught the hat at the end, and successfully completed the challenge.
Kayaking was really fun. And Hudson River was a great location. Too bad that it is an expensive activity so I can’t go often. I wish I can find another deal in Goupon one day.
