Peter Clinch wrote in
:

Mary Malmros wrote:

reasons that are unclear to me, sea kayakers seem to regard the roll
as an incredibly advanced technique that you have to build up to for
years and years.

They do? Not true of the ones I know, and I'm in an active and
reasonably large SK club.

True of almost the ones I know. I did some sea kayaking with a couple of
different groups in the Boston area. Could be they were just
exceptionally timid, although I think it was something besides timidity
going on. They had a sort of...elitism? credentialism? It was like
some of the self-appointed "experienced paddlers" didn't like to see
anyone developing a skill they didn't have, or getting better at
something. The result was that this "rolling is very very very hard and
you can maybe start to learn it in a year or two" idea became
conventional "wisdom". I couldn't find any club where they started
noobs on rolling right away.

In whitewater boating, working on a roll starts right away

As it does for sea kayaking, IME.

just get worse. And you _do_ want a reliable roll before you venture
into the surf, because it is not a good place to swim.

I actually got my "roll in anger" greatly improved in /moderate/
surf.

Heh. We call that a "combat roll", and there's nothing like combat to
test it.

For a relative beginner it's more a case of when, rather
than if, you go over,

I'd say for a paddler at any level it s a case of when, not if.
Although an experienced paddler can remain predictably upright in some
situations, when you venture into the realm of the sketchy, that all
goes away.

and so you get quite a bit of practise of
doing it for real. Moderate surf on a sandy beach away from nasty
rips is, IMHO, quite a good place to get better at unplanned "real"
rolls, and you get some fun riding the waves into the bargain.

Yup. My first ocean surf experience was in surf like this. But I'll
tell ya, it's a ton more fun in a whitewater boat! Whee!

For the sort of surf you'd be going through because you've no
realistic choice, the above "not good" is completely right though.

Yeah, but then trip planning comes in...you don't ever want to get
caught on a shore that you aren't sure you can get off. It's that old
outdoors thing about not getting in over your head.

My first outdoors experiences were on the water, learning sailing at the
age of 5. As soon as we could rig and right the boat ourselves, Dad
would let us solo. It hit me then, the realness (for lack of a better
word). I remember being in the middle of a good-sized lake, looking
around and realizing, "I got myself out here; I have to get myself back,
however long it takes." That is a feeling that most people would
probably find extremely unsettling and not at all pleasant, but for me
(and I suspect for many of us) it was...settling? Reassuring? That's
not the right word, but you get the idea. I won't kayak alone, but I do
admit to being addicted to the solo experience in just about any other
outdoor venture.