2 days ago hit 4 straight butterfly rolls in a row. Yesterday entertained a guest and gave her almost 3 hours of kayaking 101…from presenting many different types of paddles, watching rolling with malinqiag (sp?), introduction to various sea kayaks…and then the rolling demo.
Awed her with a standard Greenland roll, a screw roll, shotgun roll, a near perfect balanced brace, then I told her I wanted to show her one I had been working on…and failed! set up for the Greenland roll and came up…told her that was a good thing, not coming out of the boat and trying again. Then I told her I would try again. Failed again! and this time lost my paddle, begain half swimming (no spare on deck!!!) looking for the paddle, then did something I had read about long ago but did it without remembering the name or even to do it, just did it…the Petrussen (sp?) Maneuvre…still in the boat with two hands, then taking one hand to paddle and spin the boat around…finally seeing the paddle on the opposite I was trying to roll up on and 20 feet away??? ok, now swimming in the kayak to the paddle thinking re-enter and roll but i’m still in the Wisper and about the time I reach the paddle the skirt finally pops off and I am swimming for real.
Lessons learned:
1.the Petrussen-it works 
2. havent swum with the kayak in a while, last
time was in a Nordkapp again swimming to a
paddle, this is something I will put in my
practice routine
3. just because i’ve done the roll 4 times in a
row doesnt mean i’ve got the roll
4. its ok to do this in front of friends or lovers
especially when they still dont know bow from
stern yet
good story
brought back many similiar incidents with my wife looking at me and saying “well?”
Paul
Thanks
Good chuckle, and yeah it rings a bell. The first time I decided I was ready to show off my newly acquired roll to my sister and brother in law, I blew the first round of tries. This was before I had even heard of the Pertussin or a balance brace, so I was out of the boat when I ran out of air.
When I popped my head up, my family members were looking at me in some confusion and a motor boat with a father and his sons had come running in from a distance to rescue me.
Lickily I got the next try after the dumping out of the boat on shore etc.