Kayaking

The blade goes in, the boat pulls away, and for two seconds all you hear is water dripping off the paddle. Then again. Around you lies the open steppe of Shirak with a line of poplars on the horizon, and your eye sits thirty centimetres above the surface.

The boats are sit-in kayaks with spray decks. Ten minutes of instruction: paddle grip, the sweep stroke — a wide, reaching pull that turns the boat — and what to do if it should tip. Then you are in and moving. Capsizing is unlikely on this water, but we practise it anyway, because everything afterwards feels calmer once you have.

This is exactly where it differs from a board: from a stand-up paddleboard you step off when you have had enough and stand in hip-deep water. From a sit-in kayak with a spray deck you do not simply get out. So the wind weighs more here. Shirak is high and open; when it gets up it pushes you sideways, and the way back is something you sit through in the boat whether you want to or not. That is why we paddle in the morning and set the turning point into the wind.

Two things stand out. First: it is quiet. No engine, no traffic, only blade strokes and wind in the reeds. Second: after an hour and a half you notice your shoulders.

The route is set by water level and wind. In some weeks you paddle long stretches, in others short sections with a portage. Both are normal and both are said in advance.

You need to be able to swim. The buoyancy aid stays on even where the water looks hip-deep — shallow does not mean harmless when you are sitting in a boat.

Halfway along we pull out at a gravel bank, turn the boats over and let them drain. Ten minutes standing, stretching your back, then on. Two to four hours in a sit-in kayak asks for that, and most people only notice once they are upright again.