July 9, 2004

Whether it be little Cully, who likes to show off his six pack at age 8, or a more conservative Anna, at 13, Durango is doing the job in getting kids into kayaking. I had the pleasure of teaching this group of kids, along with Emily and Dane. Cully had never done a combat roll and his mom was about as nervous as I have seen in kayaking before. I have never got so much advice on lines to take down a rapid, etc. as I did from Cully and Rogan's mom; it was very cute, she was just really looking at this as a make or break opportunity, not knowing whether Cully would get scared off or hooked to whitewater. Little did she know that EJ was on the project and her boy was going to be a whitewater nut in about two hours.

We started off with some rolling and bracing stuff. I got everybody through their hand roll in about 15 minutes, starting with Cully who nailed it on his first try in his yellow Fun 1. Anna, Sara, Luke, Nico, Rogan, and Cully all hand rolled quite well in the eddy. I put Cully out into the rapid for his first whitewater roll and he had no problem.