-
A couple of ideas from watching. Is your PFD bulky with junk tied on the belly? A PFD that is a trim fit, no junk or pockets and one that does not ride up in the water, lets you pull yourself across the boat. Try without your PFD and see what a difference it makes. You don’t want to climb into the boat, you want to push it down and swim across it. The paddle float should just be there for a few seconds of balance support at the critical weight shift. You look very uncomfortable like a fish out of water. Take your kayak to shallow water and play with it for a couple of hours - preferably with small breaking waves around. Don’t use the paddle float and practice swimming onto the back deck, laying on the back deck, wrapping your legs around sitting up and riding it like a wild horse. practice laying on the deck of the kayak, taking your legs out of the cockpit and get used to balancing the kayak with just your weight and paddle braces.
-
Take a class on rolling and bracing now not later. If you want to paddle a sit inside seakayak, knowing how to do real braces, how to skull up, and rolling up a flooded kayak will do you a lot more good than learning a paddle float recovery. Even if you don’t get a bomb proof roll you will gain orders of magnitude in balance and boat control, and becoming one with the boat.
Yes, what SeaDart said. Your bracing and sculling take off like a rocket when you don’t care at all if you capsize. You don’t care if you capsize if you can roll on up.