Kayaking



This was photo was taken when I took the surf ski out to prepare for an adventure race. I kayaked along the bay alongside my friend who was training for the swim leg of the race.

 



It's Sunday morning and everyone has arrived. White training singlets and red shorts are de rigueur. Sunblock has been slapped on, and running shoes put onto feet.

Without further ado, the storage room door is unlocked, and either singly or in pairs, kayaks and paddles are shouldered and carried that short distance to the beachfront, placed there in preparation for training later.

The team captain calls out, and we break out into a warm-up run. A calisthenic and stretching routine follows after.

There is a slight nervousness in the air. The Year 1s were being introduced to new craft* today. Being fairly green and new to all this, we weren't really sure what we were getting ourselves into. The Year 2s seemed a lot calmer, being older hands at this.

The coach commands us to gather around, and reading out a name list, he assigns each of us into a craft. Next, he tells us the training distance and programme for today.

We soon head down to the water and the day begins for real.

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I can honestly say that my time on the kayaking team was a really memorable 2 years of my life. It wasn't just that the coach was bigger than life (though that was a big part of it), but the rigorous training really helped the team to bond together - it was a shared experience that you will remember for life. Not that I was a particularly outgoing member of the team - I was still quiet as a mouse then.

I started out as an incidental member of the team - I happened to sign-up for a try-out session doing an Open House of all the activities available at my high school - and it all went from there.

With time, I learnt the balance required (especially in 'K' crafts), and came to respect the training required to excel in this sport. Since then, I've tried out other forms of kayaking - practicing eskimo rolling in a canoe polo craft, low grade whitewater kayaking, ocean adventure racing in a surf ski - but nothing has matched the above experience so far.

To this day, I respect the man that my coach was and his philosophy in life. Also, the strong characters among my teammates - not necessarily the loud boisterous ones, but the quiet ones that were able to lead from the strength of their character.

In closing, there is nothing quite like the nervous energy of the pre-race paddle to the starting line. After all that preparation, after all that hard work at training. The feeling of shouldering your kayak, stepping into the water and climbing into your craft, placing your first stroke into the water and starting your paddle out, feet at the rudder to make minute direction corrections. You try to relax your back, your core, your arms - and let your body do what it knows how to do, while your heart is hammering out a nervous little beat. The waves are small but you feel their energy beneath the hull. You reach the start and you maintain your position, using the flat of your paddle to slap the water at times to maintain horizontal equilibrium, awaiting the sound of the air horn...

The horn goes off.

The race is on!

*T1, T2, K1, K2 - these were the racing kayak craft that were available to school teams in Singapore when I was in high school. Since then C1, C2 and K4 have been added to the repertoire. The alphanumeric code is as such: the letter refers to the class of kayak, and the numeral refers to the number of kayakers that can be carried.

Driving

High-tailing it through flooded roads in country NSW during the bad rainstorms of March 2012.

I leave the clinic, all excited, keys jangling in my hand. I'm on a mission!

Click the work car's door open, ease into the driver's seat. Place the keys into and then turn it in the ignition slot. The engine purrs into life, and I step on both the brake and clutch so that I can ease the gearstick into reverse. Next, I release the handbrake.

Tentatively, gently, my left foot releases the clutch and feels for that drop in engine RPM, while my right foot positions itself on the accelerator pedal, ready to inject that bit of 'juice' when required. Being unfamiliar with the car's biting point, I take my time and do it slow.

A 14 minute joyride later, after travel involving unsealed roads as well as a section of 100km/hr highway, I'm back at my starting point, smiling, and in possession of a blood test that I've obtained from a nearby vet clinic.

I learnt how to drive in Singapore, and I learnt in a manual car. I remember it being a long and frustrating process, and into my 8th lesson, I was still stalling the vehicle. I arrived home in tears that day and declared to my family that I would never be able to drive.

That was 9 years ago. Since then, I've moved to Australia and due to the necessity (and convenience) of driving, I haven't looked back. It is an automatic car that I regularly drive though, so the chance to drive a manual vehicle very much tickles me even now.

I don't know why exactly it is, but I love driving.

Just chilling out in the forest reserve, my car and I.

Maybe it's the feeling of speed, movement, momentum, progress, torque - whichever terms you may choose to describe it.
Maybe because it's fast travel with beautiful vistas (especially in Australia) to relax to.
Maybe because it simply represents freedom.
It probably is all of the above.

I also love walking along a road in the evening time and seeing cars travel alongside on the road - the sleek profile of the modern car hurtling along - it's evocative and sexy.

I've driven on highways with 130km/hr speed limits, on unsealed dirt roads, on uneven 4wd tracks, on beautiful winding coastal roads, on climbing mountain roads, and even on surface-flooded roads (the water not being high enough to reach the car's air intake). I've driven across Australia, on Singapore's highways, in Thailand, in New Zealand. I've hit a kangeroo, run over a fox, killed cane toads and avoided a family of emus crossing the highway.

The car and the internal combustion engine are amazing feats of engineering. I busied myself one evening last year with learning how the engine works...how all the parts come together to form this incredible machine.

Crankshafts, camshafts, cylinders, pistons, spark plugs (for petrol models), valves...The variance in the number of cylinders and the different engine configurations. How automotive engineers increase the power output of internal combustion engine.

Also, the different types of car engines - I've seen a caburetor engine thrumming along under the hood of a car. Also, I've been in a neighbour's combined electric/petrol car and been amazed at how quiet it is. And of course, I've driven and loved the 'ol trusty fuel-injected models.

Petrol vs diesel engines? Front, mid or rear engines? Front or rear or 4-wheel drive? The different configurations are endless.

As a word of warning, don't get me started on motorbikes, boats and planes...I could go on and on :)

I love offroad driving :)

 

 *RPM: revolutions per minute

 

The best thing about being a vet...

...is when all the crazy hubbub has died down: the surgeries are done, the consults have finished for now, the diagnostics completed, the treatment plan initiated, the clinic is still, and the hospitalised animals are resting quietly in their cages.

This is when yours truly joyfully sneaks into the kennel room and seizes the opportunity to shower TLC* on a patient/patients.

This doesn't happen often enough, but I love it when it does.

 

This was an afterhours case, a ferret which I managed for suspected recurrence of inflammatory bowel disease. I had brought it home and we were both keeping warm in the cold winter!

Yesterday was such a day. There was a tiny Chihuahua with a big name (think a Greek demigod with buns of steel) and big fluffy ears, which was hospitalised for protracted vomitting. A cute Siberian Husky pup which I spayed. An extra cute Pointer which was unfortunately pretty skeletal and wobbly on its legs - however it was very sweet and gave lots of sneaky kisses when I was rubbing its tummy. A mastiff x wolfhound with beautiful odd eyes - one blue one brown - in for a recheck regarding its blood clotting problem. And a very cute cat with beautiful markings and saucer-wide eyes, in for a urinary issue.

As a side note on the disparity of animal sizes that a vet can deal with in the course of a day, think 80kg Neopolitan mastiffs vs 1kg Chihuahuas (and that's just for small animal vets...consider mixed practice vets and zoo vets). Also, try putting an intravenous catheter into a tiny 1.4kg Chihuahua's arm. "Ouch!" it said, when I made my first catheterisation attempt. Just as the needle pricked the skin, it duely pulled back its arm (which was finer than the thigh bone of a chicken). I tried a second time and a similar situation ensued. I finally succeeded on the third go and by then the Chihuahua was looking somewhat upset, but it got cuddles to make up for it.

Of course, during a routine consult, I normally have my way with the animals anyway, being effusive with praise on how good they are behaving, or how cute they are, or how I genuinely just want to kiss and hug and squeeze them to death (metaphorically speaking of course).

The clients love it and so do I.

A case of acute kidney failure which I thought I might have won the battle against, pipping the odds. Unfortunately, I was soon proven wrong. Such a sweet boy, too.



*TLC: tender loving care: written about in clinical journals to be part of a complete treatment plan

Inaugural Post

I chose this blog title because I trained as a vet first, but along the way I discovered philosophy, and I am firmly an adventurer for life.

Come walk with me ;)