Petaluma River a classroom for young boaters

Canoes to kayaks, outriggers to paddle boards, kids come to appreciate river.|

Respect. Metacognition. Teamwork. Generosity.

No matter what boats kids on the Petaluma River are learning to use, their coaches are working to instill more than technical skills while their charges learn to navigate on “Petaluma’s Longest Park.”

Bradford Rex, chief instructor for the Introduction to Sailing camps offered by Petaluma Small Craft Center, says autonomy is one of boating’s gifts to children. Today, when many kids are over-scheduled, and, some may say, over-supervised, boating opens avenues for self-determination.

It begins when kids simply show up for practice or camp, as either campers or volunteers, even when it’s stinking hot. It continues as kids invest energy in their boats and crews, choose their courses in sailboats, racing kayaks, stand-up paddleboards or single sculls or steer massive six-person Hawaiian outrigger canoes. Summer boating is about learning lifelong skills.

Science class this isn’t, but camps introduce kids to the nature of the watershed. The 13-mile brackish Petaluma River, with its lightly populated banks and multitudinous wildlife, beckons, luring kids onto - and sometimes into - its cool, mucky waters. Fluctuations of wind and tide intrigue young paddlers, sailors and rowers, and offer changing conditions unlike anything encountered on a standing lake or running river.

Kids swimming during a Small Craft Summer Camp noted with delight that the tide had risen 4 feet during the course of a morning, and floated merrily upstream between the Lokahi boat ramp and the North Bay Rowing Club’s docks.

A sense of family and Hawaiian culture are the hallmarks of Lokahi’s program, which is anchored by Sam Medeiros, senior paddler, founder and president of the board. To a person, the three teens I interviewed before a recent evening practice named “Uncle Sam” as a coach and mentor who has taught them something special.

Ella Reyes, 16, says, “I first started when I was about eight years old. He’s become almost like my grandpa. He’s taught me everything I know, not just how to become a good paddler, but also how to become a good person. He’s taught me the respect that comes from the Hawaiian culture, and I feel that it’s shaped me into the person I’ve become today.”

Billy Buickerwood, 15, a third-year paddler, points out that Madeiros patiently teaches every new paddler the ropes, including “how to be respectful of other people and how to build a team.”

While all boaters are taught how to handle their (often very expensive) equipment, Hawaiian outrigger canoers verbally thank their boats, and consider even the washing of the boats a show of respect. And unlike school teams, Lokahi’s is a family made up of people from all walks of life.

Isabel Quinonez, 15, a student at Sonoma Academy, says the club is “a good place to get to know other people because everybody is close.” Reyes points out that in “this little family … it doesn’t really matter what school you go to or how old you are. I hang out with the 12-year-olds, and I hang out with the 50-year-olds.”

While summer boating camps appear to be run by adults, many rely extensively on young blood. Junior rowers and paddlers become instructors over the summer, and many adult coaches got their start doing the same. Steve Genise is a former Cal championship lightweight rower and a coach at North Bay Rowing Club (NBRC). As a writer and editor, he naturally notices how words shape an athlete’s understanding of a sport.

“The easiest people to coach on the water are those who did our learn-to-row (middle school) program. Because they’ve rowed before, they’re responsible for teaching people who have never been in boats. And because they’re responsible for articulating the different things they’re doing … they have the intellectual framework to translate what they’re hearing from the coach into what they’re seeing and feeling.”

When teaching rowing, a sport in which both hands are occupied with oars, and athletes face one another’s backs, “you have to describe how to do the rowing stroke, which helps you understand it better. It forces you to be articulate about it. That’s going to improve their public speaking ability and their metacognition in general, their ability to think about how they conduct everything in their lives.” As it turns out, teaching helps you learn.

Program director and varsity men’s coach Will Whalen points out that star volunteers like Lorelei Deely and Austin Miller, who step up during camps to help where help is needed, essentially acting as junior coaches, are setting themselves up for the possibility of a career.

“That kind of behavior now is what breeds good coaching later on,” Whalen says. “It’s not just a matter of making better rowers in the future, but also a matter of making better coaches in the future.”

When kids coach kids, they pass down club culture, too. River Town Racers is a spirited club of speedy K1 kayakers paddling out of NBRC. I caught up recently with club manager Cath Caddell and president Craig Caddell. They’d just finished their week-long summer camp, where kids aged 11-17 get to try out the Olympic sport.

Says Cath, “the adults are at camp, but Jasper (Caddell, 16) and Zachary (Alva, 20) are running it.”

When asked about the origins of these paddlers’ overwhelming sense of mutual respect, as well as respect for the property, equipment and waterway, the younger Caddell says, “It comes from our coaches, like Misha (Riszkiewicz). In the beginning, they set an expectation, that you be kind, even to your competitors, and to the people you house your boats with … that you respect them, because they’ll respect you back. That’s how the club works, and if you use that in life, you can get a lot further, and doors will open for you.”

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