Rise & Glide, Episode 5: Caroline Cook
TRANSCRIPTION:
Maddi Leblanc: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Rise and Glide podcast by Paddle Logger. Seriously, if it's not your favourite app by now, then I don't know what you're doing. But Holly and I are super stoked to welcome you back to another episode this week with our special guest, Caroline Cook a very passionate paddler, super fun person. We had a great time having an awesome conversation with Caroline and I don't know about you, Holly but I feel like I learned so much about Caroline even though I've paddled with her for a couple of years now, there's just so much I didn't know about being deaf and having cochlear implants. That really affect her performance on the water.
Holly Pye: Hey Maddie, yeah, I didn't know anything about Caroline before because I've never met her. But, when we were researching Caroline before recording the episode, I was already learning quite a lot and I was really interested to speak to her and looking forward to the conversation. But, it was such an informative conversation with Caroline. I really enjoyed learning everything about her paddling, what it was like to train so seriously in sprint kayak because that sounded hardcore. But also what it's like to be deaf on the water. That's really hard for me to imagine what it would be like to paddle and not be able to hear what's going on around you.
Maddi Leblanc: I think my favourite part of the episode was when she talked about her race in Kincardine last year and she couldn't wear her implants while she was racing and it's such a chaotic environment, right? There was waves and wind and people falling everywhere and boards bashing and yet she said it was one of the most peaceful experiences that she's ever had because she couldn't hear a single thing which I thought is just "wow". Like how crazy is that? I could never imagine being in an environment like that and not being able to hear anything.
Holly Pye: No me too. To me, it sounds really frightening to be on the water, surrounded by other people, boards clashing, waves crashing. It terrifies me, but I guess if you're used to it and Caroline, I guess because she was born deaf, she doesn't know what it's like to be able to hear in the same way that we do. It's probably quite relaxing, it's quite normal. And actually I learned that when you're wearing cochlear implants, you don't hear in the same normal way that we hear, you hear all the noises at once and you can't necessarily hear something coming from the left or from the right or from behind you just here. And so I can totally understand why it was way more peaceful for her to be able to Not hear anything at all by taking them off.
So yeah, it was such a cool conversation And I'm really looking forward to seeing how Caroline does in her upcoming races as well.
Maddi Leblanc: Yeah, I agree. I think personally, maybe because I get to race with her a lot, I definitely think, within the next few years, her training is getting serious, and she's so passionate and so I know she'll definitely be a threat to someone somewhere in the in the racing scene. But for those of you who are listening that don't know, Caroline, she was born completely deaf. She does wear cochlear implants that help her hear and she doesn't let her disability stop her from doing what she loves, which is paddling. She paddled and raced sprint canoe and kayak with a focus on kayak for over 20 years, which is so crazy.
Holly Pye: Yeah, that sounded really hardcore. So since then she's dabbled in dragon boat, stand up paddle boarding, and also surf ski. But I don't think she got into SUP seriously until she bought her first 14 foot race board in the summer of 2021. And she mentioned about how feeling the speed of the race board and doing really well in her first few races was all that she needed to fully plunge into the sport. So we hope that you all enjoy listening to this episode just as much as we enjoyed recording it. And yeah, enjoy.
Maddi Leblanc: Caroline, welcome! Welcome to the show. We're stoked to have you here today!
Caroline Cook: Hi, thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm really excited to be here and chatting with you guys.
Maddi Leblanc: We're so stoked to talk with you as well. I think what makes you so unique is some of the challenges that you've had to overcome and face in your paddling journey and so for our audience, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and who you are, where you're from, what you do?
Caroline Cook: I've been a paddler for the last, I would say, 22, 23 years of my life. And the one thing that's pretty unique about me is that I was born severe to profoundly deaf in both ears. I wear cochlear implants. which help me hear, and I also have a hearing dog guide, because when I take off my hearing aids, I'm completely deaf, so my dog guide wakes me up for my alarm clock in the morning because I think it would be it would be a lot to ask my husband to wake me up at 5am so that I could go paddle.
Holly Pye: When did you get your dog? Have you had her for a long time? How old is she?
Caroline Cook: So she's my second hearing dog guide. I've had her for just over three years and I take her to work with me. I work in Toronto as a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing and Gracie, my dog guide, comes with me every day to work and everybody loves her, but they can't pet her. It's a lesson of restraint for the staff and it's really cool for the students to see how a working dog works. And, as I mentioned, Gracie is my second dog guide. I got my first dog guide when I was 16 and I brought her to high school with me, which made me pretty popular.
Holly Pye: Aww, I can imagine. It must have been hard then too with, people not being able to stroke the dogs. Have you had any any moments that have been quite worrying where people have interrupted her while she's working?
Caroline Cook: One thing that they've added to the training for dog eyes is when somebody else pets your dog, you reward your dog for looking at you. So now if somebody pets Gracie, Gracie just looks at me. Because the whole reason why they can't pet her is because it would distract her from her job, which is to be always watching me, always listening for sound. So to train Gracie to look at me and she's... attending to me, even though someone else is petting her.
Holly Pye: That's amazing. And when, how old were you when you got into paddling? How did you get into paddling?
Caroline Cook: So I started when I was eight years old in a sports camp. It was a full day camp where you bring your bike and we would bike up and down the boardwalk and we would do different sports like swimming dodgeball and paddling. And when I would come home, my parents would ask me like, "how was your day? What was your favorite part of the day?" And I said, "oh, the paddling". I loved the paddling so much, and they said "what didn't you like?" Everything else! And then when they decided to sign me up for a full day paddling camp and it just took off from there. So I've done flat water, sprint, canoe, and kayak competitively for so many years, so many training camps in Florida, training camp in Hawaii. And then during the pandemic is when I transitioned to stand up paddleboard because I was just looking for something different and I had also started working full time as a teacher, and I didn't have 21 hours a week to train for sprint kayak anymore.
Holly Pye: So when you were in those sports camps, was that kayaking or canoeing or both?
Caroline Cook: In the sports camp, it was mostly kayaking and then when I transitioned to the full day camp, we did canoeing. Which is so hard because it's hard to steer and, when you're ten years old, you're trying to steer and then the boat keeps going toward a wall you start getting really terrified because it's so hard to turn around. So you're like, "I'm gonna try to make this turn, but I also might hit the wall. But I'm committed. I have to keep going. I can't stop".
Holly Pye: Oh, I can imagine.
Maddi Leblanc: That's so funny. I've always wanted to try an OC1 or a sprint kayak, but I feel like I would be the exact same way. I would just struggle so much to turn it or I would probably just fall out every five seconds because those boats are quite tippy, eh Caroline?
Caroline Cook: Yeah, they are. But I feel like that's the fun. Step one is just learning how to not fall out and that was a, big challenge that I absolutely love to take on and every time I mastered a boat. I was like, "okay I'm going into the next tippy boat and then I want to go to the next tippy boat" and funny thing the same thing happened with paddleboarding over the last two years. I've transitioned from a 30 inch inflatable to a 21 and a half inch flat deck.
Holly Pye: I always think that some of our race boards are narrow, and then I look at the, kayaks and surf skis and canoes that they race with and it's just crazy how narrow they are. They're barely wide enough to sit on!
Caroline Cook: Yeah, they're just as wide as my hips. And the balance is completely different in a surf ski. I actually went in surfski a couple weeks ago after a few months away from it because I was focusing on paddleboarding and my hip flexors were so sore for days. When I got back on the paddleboard, it felt like a nice stretch for the hip flexors.
Maddi Leblanc: That's amazing. That's so incredible. I think that's actually so cool, Caroline, that you grew up doing different kinds of paddling, and then you've transitioned into surfski, and now SUP, but can you take us back a little bit when you were in the camps, and then, cause you competed nationally for Team Canada when you had your really competitive days. So how did you go from like your summer camp days into that heavily competition for Canada?
Caroline Cook: I've always been really competitive since I was young and that's something that I need. That's something that keeps me going it's the reason why I do what I do is because I'm competitive and it's fun racing fun in Sprint Canoe Kayak like I said before, I was training 21 hours a week. It's every day, twice a day, we only get Sundays off. Training through the winter we would swim as far as, a swim team would swim, like over three, four kilometers per practice at the Pan Am pool, and at nationals we would race in all the crew boats, so we would do K1, K2, K4, which is a kayak for four people. The one that's the best team sport is war canoe, because you have 14 canoers and then you have a coxswain at the back steering the boat. So just competing at provincials, nationals every year. And then one year I competed at the marathon world championships. So that was when I got to represent Team Canada, which is really cool. And that was a race in Oklahoma City, and I got a Pan Am gold medal out of that race as well, which was awesome. It was one of the hardest things I ever did. The race started at 11am and it was 32 degrees and the race lasted just over two hours and my camelback by the end of the race was warm. I feel like that race actually prepared me for paddle boarding because we wear our hydration packs for every race and the races are so long and it's really awesome. Yeah, it's great how there's so many different sports that just get us out on the water and I'm so excited to discover them all. Prone paddleboarding you introduced me, Maddi to last summer. It's so much fun. It's so nice to feel that connection with the water!
Maddi Leblanc: Right! That I find it's the different crafts make you have almost like a different perspective. Like when you're on the prone board and your face is so close to the water it's different than when you're on a SUP, but when you're on a SUP I find you can look down and see the water a little bit better especially if the water's super clear, it's a neat perspective, I think that's really cool, and I think Glen's coming by today, though, eh? To get the prone board from you?
Caroline Cook: Yeah, he is. Oh, now I need to look for another prone board.
Maddi Leblanc: Yeah! I was gonna say, that's too bad, cause I know what that prone board addiction is like. Holly - last year, when I hurt my knee, prone paddle boarding was all I could do for a few weeks while I couldn't stand and once I got back into SUP, when my knee was more fully recovered. I asked Caroline, because I was living in Toronto, I said, "Hey can you hang on to this prone board for me? Because I'm moving back to Niagara and I don't have room there to keep this board". And Caroline was like, I will gladly hang on to it for you.
Holly Pye: I've not met many, this sounds ridiculous, but I've not met many paddlers. who do or who have done kayaking, canoeing and stand up paddle boarding. I think most paddlers do just one and they stick with it. I was saying this to Maddi last week, I stand up paddle board and I only stand up paddle board and that's probably really bad, isn't it? But, if the weather is nice, I don't own a kayak or a canoe, but there's clubs locally to me, but if the weather is nice or if I want to go paddling, I always just, I stand up paddleboard, I stand up paddleboard, I stand up paddleboard. And some people maybe do some other paddling for cross training, but very few people do all of the paddle sports because I guess they find one that they like and they stick with it. So it's really unique to be doing a bit of everything. That's really cool.
Caroline Cook: And there's nothing wrong with only paddleboarding I'm sure that you're able to work on so many of the skills for paddleboarding. And the one thing that I do love about having my sprint background is I already had the technique before I got into paddleboarding. It was just a matter of getting used to the balance of standing and applying the technique that I knew to paddle boarding. I recently got into the kayak after not kayaking for about 2 years. And I was kayaking next to my friend who was canoeing. And I was looking up at him, and I was like, "I haven't had to look up at anyone in so long because I've been paddle boarding, I've been looking down at people". And I also noticed the water was so much echoey er from down below because I was so close to the water. There was this weird echo.
Holly Pye: That's such a good point.
Caroline Cook: Yeah about looking up. It totally changes your perspective. So the one thing that really drew me to paddle boarding is the flexibility of it. You grab your paddle, you grab your PFD and then you just go and you don't have to worry about falling in because in a sprint kayak, you fall in - it's very difficult, but you can climb back in, but then your boat's full of water and you have to go to shore and you have to empty it. But with paddle boarding, it's like you're on a life raft and you fall in, you just get back out and you keep going. And the one thing that was hard for me at first was the glide in paddleboard is not the same. It's not quite as fast as kayak and that was it's come that was coming from Paddling on an inflatable, but once I got onto an actual race board and I felt the glide I thought okay I think I can understand why people like this
Holly Pye: It's still much slower though, isn't it?
Caroline Cook: A little bit. But, I think the dynamicness of the racing is what's so exciting to me. Just because you're the fastest doesn't mean you're gonna win all the time, because those turns get really messy sometimes. And when you have five women all trying to pivot turn or crossbow draw at the same time, that's what I find so exciting. In Sprint Canoe and Kayak, you're just in your lane, it's like swimming. You just go from point A to point B as fast as you can, and that's it. There's no interference. So I actually love the board rubbing stand up paddle boarding I don't know, it's so exciting to me.
Holly Pye: Oh yeah. Rubbing is racing. So what did when you were racing a lot in Sprint, Kayak and Canoe what did a typical week of training look like for you? You were obviously training a lot, but what kind of sessions were you doing? Was it always paddling and more paddling or were you cross training a lot? How was your training back then?
Caroline Cook: Okay. Monday, paddle twice, and do weights. It's Tuesday, paddle twice and run, Wednesday paddle once, but a really long paddle, so this would be like 26km, and then Thursday paddle twice and do weights, Friday paddle twice and then Saturday race. And when you race a regatta usually lasts from like 8:30/9am to 4/5pm, and you could have anywhere from 6 - 9 races in a day, and the length of your races would be 200 meters, 500 meters, 1,000 meters. For the younger like 15 year olds, a 6 kilometer race. So it's a lot of volume. It's very high volume.
Holly Pye: That what a week typically looked like in your on season? What did your off season look like?
Caroline Cook: So the off season, basically, by November, it would be too cold to paddle on the water, so we would move indoors, and we did two times a week swimming, three times a week running, three times a week weights, and paddling machine, or kayak ergometer, that would be two or three times a week.
Holly Pye: You guys are hardcore in Canada. I always forget how cold it gets. So cold that the water literally freezes. You can't paddle even if you want to.
Caroline Cook: We try. Maddi's been the one who got me into a dry suit and paddling all winter. So that's been really cool. This winter I've paddled three or four times a week, every week.
Holly Pye: Wow. I guess if you were in a canoe, and you were sprint training, the risk of falling in is that much bigger that if it was freezing cold, minus temperatures, if you fell in, it would get dangerous, wouldn't it?
Caroline Cook: Yeah, so that's why we typically finish at the end of October once the water gets cold or the air gets really cold. There was one year where we did paddle through December, but it was unseasonably warm that year. That's a lot of training.
Maddi Leblanc: I remember we've had discussions about that before and I was like, "man, Caroline you're like hardcore , like your past days are like, holy moly". Like just on. And when did that all stop for you? Like, when did you stop training that many days a week?
Caroline Cook: I stopped in 2015, which is when I went to get my Bachelor of Education to become a teacher. But then that lasted about nine months before I really missed paddling. And then that's when I went to Hawaii and I fell in love with paddling again and I started training again. But it was a little bit different because I was also working. And then it was during the pandemic when I really stopped because at one point in Toronto, they didn't want people to go outside at all during the pandemic, which is crazy to look back on. And then they finally let people actually go outside. So we would drive over to the Humber River and just paddle. So I was mostly paddling on my own or like with a small group as opposed to with the canoe club in a structured environment. And then I just naturally transitioned over to SUP because I tried out a race board that my friend had just bought. It was a used 12. 6 race board, a Starboard actually. Yeah! And so that was like the first race board that I ever used. And then that's when I started to really enjoy SUP, and I was like, "Okay this was fast maybe I'll enter a race in Collingwood for the Ontario SUP Series". And then I did that race, and I think I came 4th or 5th or 6th? I don't remember. But, that was it. That was the bug. It bit me, and I was like, "alright, I'm committed. Let me find my first race board and actually start training".
Holly Pye: That's so cool. Do you cross over any of your old training styles into SUP now? Do you do the same kinds of sessions or do you train completely differently to how you used to train?
Caroline Cook: Because paddleboarding is still new for me, I think the most important thing for me to do is just to go out on the water in all kinds of conditions and just get used to that. Get used to... It being really choppy and waves, headwinds, downwinds. But I do fall back into old habits and I, do the same on water workouts that I did when I was kayaking, and when I go to the gym, I fall back into the same patterns. Doing the same exercises that I used to do before. But I've added more more stability exercises to help with the paddleboard.
Holly Pye: How is your hearing when you're on the water? Do you notice, does it affect how you paddle?
Caroline Cook: With my hearing, I find I really need to be able to read people's lips in order to fully understand what they're saying. And partially because on the water there's a lot of background noise. There's the sound of the paddle splashing, there's birds, there's people, there's, cars on the road next to the water. There's a lot of background noise, so I really have to be able to see people's faces. A social paddle is usually a pretty easy paddle because I have to turn my head the whole time to look at the person. So usually the workouts are very focused, very like individual and when I race I find it difficult to hear sometimes. So I always try to make sure that the organizers know that I'm deaf so that they know to face me like when they're explaining the race course. And also, last summer I had a race in Kincardine where the waves were huge and I looked at them and I thought, I don't want to be stressed about falling in and losing my cochlear implants because I wear them with a hat that's really tight to keep them on, but if I a wave, a hat is going to do nothing for me. So in that race, I talked to the organizers and I said, "I'm going to take my implants off for this race. I'm going to be completely deaf. How can we accommodate this?" and Maddie actually, because of her knee injury, she didn't race. So she offered to be my visual start person. So when the horn went off, she waved her arm down so that I knew that the race had started. I was a little nervous because I don't usually take my implants off except for sleeping. Or if I'm vacuuming, because it's really loud when you vacuum. So I did this phase where the wind was so loud, the waves were so loud, and I just heard nothing. And it was such a surreal experience. It was... I was so calm somehow, even though I'm doing a race that's super difficult, and I was just so focused. It was like there was nobody around me, it was just me out on the water and there's the buoy, I need to go around that, and I loved it, it was such an amazing experience to be that focused when I was paddling, and since then, I actually raced at Carolina Cup this year for the first time, in the graveyard. I did not want to race without my implants for two and a half, three hours because, it was my first time paddling on the ocean on a SUP and it was a place that I'd never been to before so I thought, for safety I would like to wear my implants. I would like to know what's going on and I have something called an Aqua Plus accessory for my cochlear implants.
It's a sleeve. that I put my implant in, which makes it completely waterproof. Without it, my implants are as waterproof as our phones, so it's one meter deep water, up to 30 minutes. But this aqua accessory makes it so that it could be in the water basically forever. And then I had paracord that I tied to my implants, and then I tied that to my hydration vest, so that if my implants fell off, It would just flop around on my vest, as opposed to, $24,000 sinking to the bottom of the ocean. And that was also a good experience because it was a good thing I could hear just for safety and it's nice not to be stressed about falling in because... I'm sure you both know like when you paddle in cold water and you're stressed about falling in it actually makes you feel even less stable than before so you want to be able to go out and paddle and feel comfortable the whole time because then you'll be relaxed and you'll paddle and you won't tense up in all the wrong places.
Maddi Leblanc: I couldn't agree with you more. I literally hate that feeling. I hate when I'm so tense especially Caroline even when we are wearing dry suits in the winter, I still have that in the back of my head of "I really don't want to fall in". This is not an enjoyable experience. And you're right, it does tense you up and paddling should be relaxed and in all of your senses, right? I think first of all, that's really cool to hear, actually, your Kincardine experience because I don't think I ever got to talk to you about that after the race. I remember waving my hand down for you to go, but I never asked you what's it like, just to be out in such a chaotic environment with so many waves, yet you're like, peaceful and calm and kind of Zen in a different way, which is really cool. And and then Carolina Cup too. I think we were both so busy in our prep before I didn't even have a chance to ask you like, like what your prep was for your hearing. So I think that's all really inspiring actually. And I feel like that'd be cool if you reached out to Carolina Cup and said "hey" if you even wrote a blog on that and said "this is what I did", I think that'd be really neat. I think they think your story is really cool. That's awesome. All of that is so great. I love to hear it.
Caroline Cook: Thank you. That's the one thing that I wanted people to know is that just because you're deaf doesn't mean that you can't do it. It doesn't mean you can't do water sports, because I know that there are parents out there who have babies that are just have just been identified as being deaf or hard of hearing and they have no idea what their lives are going to look like when they grow up. I know my parents had no idea. They thought, "is she going to be speaking American Sign Language? Are we ever going to? be able to talk to her child orally". And they had so many questions like "what, how is her life going to turn out?". So it's totally ironic that of all things that I embraced, it's water sports, which got a little complicated because when I was younger I wore hearing aids. So I wore hearing aids until I was 17, but they weren't powerful enough for me. I honestly don't know how I made it that far with hearing aids, but I did and when I was about, I think 12 years old, my parents bought me these waterproof hearing aids that had the worst sound quality. And every time I fell in the water, they stopped working, so I don't really know how useful they were. But that was one of the things that they tried to do for me. They were so supportive and encouraging. They just, they moved heaven and earth to make sure that I could do what I love to do.
Maddi Leblanc: Maybe, Holly, what we could do in the show notes or something like that is we could put a link to maybe the ones some of the equipment that you use now, Caroline, so that other listeners maybe who are hard of hearing or want those resources can have access to them as well specifically what you use and maybe even products you don't recommend.
Holly Pye: For sure, no, that's so cool. Did you, do you not find it scary at all? You mentioned how when you were racing with no hearing. It was strangely relaxing, but I would imagine that it would be scary not being able to hear the waves coming, or other paddlers, or the splashing of the paddles, knowing where people are without seeing them, maybe if they're just to your side or behind you, or even if there's safety boats, you can hear them before you can see them. Did you ever feel a bit scared not being able to hear, or are you just quite used to being on the water and having limited hearing?
Caroline Cook: I'm actually really glad that you brought that up because a lot of people think that getting hearing aids or getting cochlear implants means that your hearing's fixed and you can just hear like everybody else. I don't hear people coming up behind me in a race. I don't hear their paddles flashing. I have a really hard time picking out sounds in a really loud environment. I tend to hear everything at once. The sound of the waves, the wind, like I just hear it all at once. I don't hear, oh, like I hear a motorboat that's, to my, to the right of me. I don't hear things like that. So I don't know what that's I don't know if I should be scared, but I'm not. And when I paddled without my implants in that race, I felt very safe because they asked the safety boat drivers to keep an extra close eye on me. And the other competitors also knew that I wasn't going to be able to hear. And funny story. There was a race recently in Montreal. And I was racing with some of the women from Ontario, as well. And one of them was right next to me in the race. And she yelled something to me. And I had no idea what she said, because I heard the yelling, I just didn't hear actual words. So I'm racing, and I said, "What?" and she said, "Go Team Ontario!" And I thought, "oh man, like I feel so bad that I had to make you repeat that" cause it was like, it was nice that she was like cheering us on, but I was like, you're wasting your breath here, like just keep going. I don't hear people yelling and racist, like I hear yelling, I just don't know what they're saying. So I'm like I don't know if this is... I don't know if you're swearing or if you're, like, I don't know what people are saying out there. So that's something that's really important for people to know, is if you yell at me in a race, I probably 90% do not know what you have said. And that's okay, when we're racing, we're not, we're not chatting out there.
Holly Pye: I guess it might be distracting though, like then when you had to think about it for a minute and ask her to repeat herself, that's quite distracting if you're in the middle of the race, and maybe it's just better for people to hold flags.
Caroline Cook: No, that's a good point. It is distracting because it totally takes me away from the race. Sometimes I don't ask people to repeat themselves. I'm like, I'm just gonna let this go, whatever. It's their own fault.
Holly Pye: Yeah. And so what made you decide to get the cochlear implant and when was that, what was that process like for you?
Caroline Cook: I was 17 years old. I was in my last year of high school and I got really tired of being left out of group conversation. I mean even now group conversations are difficult, but I really struggled with hearing aids. I had to lip read you. I couldn't hear you if you were behind me. So a group conversation was like a ping pong match with my head looking left and right and trying to figure out who's talking and when you're a teenager everyone's really focused on themselves, right? Everyone has their own their own things going on. My friends weren't exactly looking out for me to repeat what they've said or if people were laughing in a conversation, I would ask, "Oh, what was so funny?" And they're like, "Oh, I'll tell you later". Nobody remembers what the joke was later, right? I found that really frustrating and my whole life, I've been told that if I had cochlear implants, I could hear an S sound, and I couldn't hear them before. And my S's, even now, like when I see them, they're not perfect, but I can actually hear them with a cochlear implant, which was life changing. I could also hear birds singing, and there was one day, it was so hot in August, And I turned to my mom and I said, "What is that awful noise? What is that whining sound?" And she said, "Oh, that's a cicada". And she said, "You can actually hear that?" And I said, "Yeah, it's so loud".
Maddi Leblanc: They're funny little bugs!
Caroline Cook: Yeah! And it was all those high frequency sounds that I was missing. That was what the hearing aid couldn't amplify loud enough for me to hear. And now I can hear people who are in another room talking to me. But the limitation is that once you add background noise, like water splashing, or cars, or like the TV is on, or music, that's when it gets really difficult for me to understand what people are saying.
Holly Pye: Wow. Did it take an adjustment period, or from the minute you had them, were things better?
Caroline Cook: Actually, the adjustment period, I would say is about a year long, when I had to mentally prepare myself to get the cochlear implants, because when you first get turned on, it just sounds like a whole bunch of noise happening all the time. It was like the air was making a sound, and I was hearing it. And when my mom spoke, she sounded like Donald Duck. And I asked her to stop talking because it sounded so awful. It took, I would say it took a month before speech started to sound like actual speech. And then it took six months for it to start, for everything to start more natural start like, sounding like how it sounded with my hearing aids, but clearer. That's how I would describe it. The implants sound the same, but clearer. And I've also been told that the quality of my voice got better. Before my voice sounded a bit hollow. It didn't sound as full as it sounds now. And a lot of that is just because I can hear myself better. I can regulate the sound of my voice better. Because I actually had that feedback now that I was missing some of that before, right?
Holly Pye: That's really interesting. I didn't know that.
Maddi Leblanc: That's so cool. So what was the transition like then? Because you started paddling before you had the implants. So what was that transition like in terms of being on the water and paddling?
Caroline Cook: The one thing that really pushed me to get the implants was that they came out with waterproof or water resistant ones and I thought, alright that's perfect, sign me up, because I do a water sport and I need waterproof or water resistant implants. The one thing that was definitely an adjustment is that the implant doesn't have an ear mold that you put in your ear. It just has the magnet on your head, and then it has a hook on top of your ear, which means that they flop and fall off really easily. Whenever I would do chin ups in the gym, when I was really sweaty, my implants would fall on the floor. And also when I paddled, I was really worried about losing them. Whereas when I had hearing aids, I never worried about losing them or having them fall off. They always just seemed to stay on my ears. That's when I had to start wearing headbands, and then I switched to wearing hats all the time to keep my implants on, or I wear a buff, which is actually what I wore at the Carolina Cup to keep the implants on my ears so that, they weren't flopping around everywhere.
Maddi Leblanc: Oh, that's so cool. I'm just so curious. What advice would you give to people now who are in the same boat as you as well? Maybe they're fully deaf or they're partially deaf, but they want to get like into water sports. What kinds of equipment would you recommend for them? Or maybe not recommend because you tried it and you're like, okay, it didn't work or anything like that.
Caroline Cook: I definitely recommend wearing headbands or hats to keep everything secure and if you're worried about things getting wet, wearing a buff is really good because that covers your ears. Also, some people use double sided tape. I tried it when I was younger. It didn't really work for me because it kept getting caught in my hair and I have a lot of hair so it might be better suited for someone who has straight hair or doesn't have long curly hair like I do I definitely if you have cochlear implants, I definitely recommend the aqua plus accessory because that's what will keep them totally waterproof. And definitely add in paracord because I found that the clips that come with the Aqua, they broke within 30 seconds of me using it, and then I got them replaced and then they broke again. So I definitely don't trust that. I trust having paracord that's like actually wrapped around like a tag on your shirt or like a loop of your tank top because that's the only thing that's gonna definitely stay on your shirt and not fall off or break. Paracord is really durable.
Maddi Leblanc: Okay. Neat. Yeah that's actually all really cool. Cause, yeah, there's so much equipment that I don't know just because I've never had to live through that experience. So I think... All of that is super helpful for our listeners who may be in the same boat as you, no pun intended but I also too, Caroline, I want to talk quickly about your surfing experience as well, because you are a surfer, you're a prone surfer you love surfing on the Great Lakes as well, and I think just recently as well, you got into SUP surfing, so tell us a little bit about that and what that's like for you.
Caroline Cook: So when I surf, I have to take my implants off, just because I'll just lose them, and also for anybody out there who doesn't know what it's like to surf on the Great Lakes... It's not the ocean. We don't have swells. We rely on big, powerful storms to create powerful wind to create waves. Every time we go out there, it's either raining or hailing or there's some kind of strong wind. There's no point in me being able to hear out there. At Surf the Greats, I was connected with another deaf surfer and after talking to him, he said "don't even bother with the implants". Cause, I was trying to do a thing where I would wear a neoprene cap and he said "don't even bother it's just gonna get all... It's gonna get knocked off or whatever". And, honestly, I love surfing when I'm deaf. I usually go out there and I let people know because sometimes people talk to you or, if you both get on the same wave, they probably yell something and I don't know, I've never heard them, but I always make sure people know that I am deaf because, the last thing you want is for someone to start talking to you and be like, "wow she's so rude, she's just ignoring me" but I'm just out there to, get some waves and feel the stoke and yeah I really love surfing, SUP surfing, just being in the water. I'm a total water girl.
Maddi Leblanc: Oh, Caroline that's so funny to me because I remember, I think it was the second time I met you. The first time was at a race was at the Bracebridge Ontario SUP series race, and then the second time was out in the surf at the Scarborough Bluffs. And I remember you caught a wave and it was, like, you shredded this thing. You just went up and you smacked the lip and you came down. And I looked at you and I was like, that was awesome. And then you looked back at me and you just yelled at me, "I can't hear you". And I remember thinking that, because I didn't know at the time that you were deaf, and so I remember thinking like, "oh, okay like, when we surf here, like we have neoprene hoods on, like we're covered, like our ears are covered, so I'm like, oh, okay, whatever she probably just, the wind, the waves, the neoprene, she just can't hear me it is what it is", but you're a freaking shredder I love it.
Caroline Cook: I remember that day. I remember the wind was so strong and the waves were really big. Those were the biggest conditions I had been out in. So I was a little bit scared when I was paddling out there. But yeah, I remember when I caught that wave, I was like, "oh man, like this is why I do it". It's always you're always just chasing after that next wave and then the next one and you're like, "okay just one more and then I'll leave" and then after that I'm like, "okay one more and then I'll leave". It's an addiction. Just all the water sports that we do like prone boarding like everything is it's just so addictive. That feeling of being out on the water and seeing the blue is the best feeling in the world. There's nothing more calming and meditative than that.
Holly Pye: I want to ask you guys some questions because I've never been to Canada, so I don't know what it's like to surf on a lake. I surf in the sea here in England. Lucky! Is it always in the winter that you mainly get the storms or is it just whenever, can it be any time of year? What's it like to surf in the sea? I can't imagine surfing in fresh water and not having the taste of salt, salty water. What was it like to be in the, have you ever surfed in the sea?
Caroline Cook: I surfed, I took a lesson Hawaii like eight years ago, but the waves were so small and my surf instructor pushed the board for me, and then the deal was he was supposed to tell you when to stand up, but obviously I couldn't hear that, so he said, "when I push, I want you to count four one thousand and then stand up". So I wouldn't really count that as a surf experience, but In Toronto, when September rolls around, that's when it starts to get a little stormy and then that's when everyone's like surf's up, surf season's open. Sometimes, we get lucky at the end of August and then we have waves where we don't have to wear wetsuits, which is so liberating. But usually our surf season is from September to would you say March, Maddi?
Maddi Leblanc: I'd say so yeah, there's sporadic waves in April and May, but consistently, I agree with Caroline, it's usually September to the end of March.
Holly Pye: I've seen things online, I think you've shared Maddi, when you have waves, you just have them for a few hours, right?
Maddi Leblanc: It can be, yeah, like we, like Caroline said, like we on the Great Lakes, we don't surf ground swell, we surf wind swell. And so literally whatever the wind is doing that's what we're surfing. There can be days when the wind is just blowing all day and you have a surf all day. I remember last year, I think there was like a solid week where like four days in a row it was just blowing in the same direction all day, every day, and we could surf our brains out. But recently I had a surf here on the Great Lakes in February, and it was crazy because I rolled up to the surf spot on Lake Erie here and the water was flat, like the wind was blowing, but nothing was there yet. And I was like, "damn it". So I sat in my car literally for a half an hour and it was like, boom, the lake had just completely switched. And here we were, all of a sudden we had I think that day there was like three to four foot swells. We actually had some solid waves roll through. And... That's literally just the magic of the Great Lakes. You need typically the wind to be blowing in the same direction for minimum five hours with gusts usually over 30 kilometers for us to get like a good solid rideable wave, as well as a low air pressure, anything below 101.3 on like the barometric system. Usually when we have that's when we get waves.
Caroline Cook: But, that's cool. It's all down to the science. A typical like pre surf exercise is checking all the apps three to five days before. Okay, we might have a window on this day. Okay and every day keep checking the apps and check the weather network, see if the wind's blowing and the, and all those other there's there's a lot of websites and apps out there. But they're really meant for the ocean because every time they say we have three foot waves we have zero waves so there's a lot of preparation and anticipation for when the wind blows and maybe there'll be surf or maybe you'll get skunked and it's a big time commitment. I have to say since working full time I haven't had as much time to surf because it was always early in the morning and in the winter the sun doesn't rise till 7:30am which isn't enough time for me to get an hour of surfing and then go to work. So I find the people here who surf are so hardcore because they'll drive to Lake Erie because there's surf, and then the next day they're driving to Lake Huron because there's surf on that day, or they're driving to Cobourg or sand banks to find the surf like you need a car and you can never have offshore wind The wind always has to be blowing on shore sometimes you get that cleanup, but you had but that's where like the timing has to be just so...
Maddi Leblanc: Yeah actually Holly, Caroline and I, it was I believe, April of 2022. We had one day in Toronto, actually, at Ashbridges Bay. It was one of those magical mornings where the wind had blown east all night. So what rolled in that next morning was an east swell. But the wind had switched offshore to a bit of a north, northeast. So it was perfect because you still had energy left over from what was produced the night before. And literally it was like, I don't know Caroline, maybe like a two hour window. That we had to surf really clean, glassy waves with super low offshore wind. Every Great Lakes surfer's dream. Be on a wave with no wind, and it was so much fun. I think, Caroline, you were on my 8'0 board for a little bit it was like that whit surfboard I used to have and I think I was SUP surfing that day because I was like, wow, I can actually be on a SUP and not get blown around.
Caroline Cook: It was magical, the sun was rising and it was just an amazing morning.
Holly Pye: That's so cool. And your dog Gracie, has she ever been paddle boarding? Or does she like the water?
Caroline Cook: The funny thing was, when I got Gracie, she had never been to the beach before. So I took her and she just refused to get her paws wet. I just kept taking her to the beach and throwing sticks and stones in the water and then she would eventually venture out deeper. I only take her out paddle boarding when we're camping and there's nowhere to leave her because she doesn't totally enjoy it but she'll sit there and it's nice when you sit on the board with her, she leans her back. It's you have a little backrest for your paddling. Aww, that's sweet.
Holly Pye: Aww, that's sweet. I guess you would need a wider board, or a bigger board if you were gonna take her more often?
Caroline Cook: Yeah the times that I took her out, I was on like a 27 inch board and it was like a nice flat deck, the old style racing board that's like... Right now it feels like a tour in board.
Holly Pye: I'm sure she will start to enjoy it more.
Caroline Cook: Yeah, she's definitely like she's become a swimmer like now. She'll swim after me probably because she's trying to save my life or something!
Holly Pye: I guess Caroline to some extent Gracie is like an extension of you know, you must go everywhere together and You help her out and she helps you out, and although she's a dog. She's a different animal. She's part of you
Caroline Cook: She really is and it's amazing to have such a strong bond with Gracie. Like she comes grocery shopping with me. She comes to my doctor's appointment. She's my support dog for my blood tests. She's just there for me all the time. I always feel bad when I go out paddling because she's always looking at me like, "are you really gonna leave without me? Like, why am I not coming?". And then when I come home she acts like I left her for a week and just like never came back. So it's... It's amazing, like, how we have such a strong bond and she's just, like, when I'm at home she's underneath me all the time. She just constantly wants to be near me or be touching me. It's really sweet and the bond between a person and their dog is really it's really not like a pet at all. When my first dog died that was the hardest thing that I ever had to go through. Just because she was there for me in high school, in university my first dog lived on residence with me and at 3am she woke me up because somebody's fire alarm was going off. So she saved my life and it's amazing what these dogs do for us and how much we can rely on them because they're just, they're so reliable and supportive.
Holly Pye: Their training is amazing. So what races are you planning on doing over the next few months? Do you have anything lined up? Anything coming soon in, in your paddling world?
Caroline Cook: So there's the Ontario SUP series planning to do all those races. There's races in Kincardine, Collingwood. There's a race in Vermont that I'm looking forward to doing this summer. I have some family in Vermont, so I thought it would be a good excuse to go back there and do some races, the biggest race for me this year was Carolina Cup, so I actually felt like once that race finished, I was like, "okay, I'm done" and then I realized, this is just the beginning of the season, but it was a good start to the season. But that was definitely the race that I've been training for all winter and now I feel like I get to just enjoy the summer and just do so many fun races. That was the one thing that I love about SUP is that all the races feel like you're just hanging out with your friends. You're, like, going to a beach party. It doesn't feel as nerve wracking. It's not as stressful, I find. It's so much fun, it's such a blast.
Holly Pye: Are you going to do the Carolina Cup next year?
Caroline Cook: I don't know yet. When people were asking me, I said maybe ask me in a couple months. Because that race was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. I hadn't paddle boarded 22 kilometers before. I was training, I worked myself up to about two and a half hours, two hours, 45 minutes when I was training this winter. It was hard though because the sun set at, I'm not kidding, 4:30pm this winter, and the sun rose too early too late for me to paddle before work. So I was really rushing around the city to try to fit in my paddling time before it got too dark. And then the Carolina Cup happened and... It's such a long race on the ocean with the swell, the chop, the tide, the wind, the waves, and my legs were like ramen noodles by the last 5km. And I remember thinking like, "Okay I'd love to stop right now, but I literally can't because I'm in the middle of the ocean and I have to paddle all the way back to the start line", but it was such an amazing experience. And when I crossed the line, I cried because I was just like, I can't believe I did it. I completed it. And it was the hardest thing I'd ever done. And I felt like I felt invincible, like nothing in my life was ever going to be as hard as doing the Carolina cup was. And I volunteered to do it.
Holly Pye: I guess that's why they call it the graveyard race, right?
Caroline Cook: Yeah, I think I think they call it the graveyard race because when the guys started. So many of them fell in and their boards just launched straight up into the air like tombstones. Holly, are you going to come and do the graveyard one year?
Holly Pye: I'd love to. I need to get over to the US and Canada for some racing. I've only raced in Europe, so that would be, it's definitely one on my bucket list.
Maddi Leblanc: Oh yeah you gotta come Holly. There's no exception, we would love to have you over here.
Holly Pye: But I'm the same, I think I'm the same here, I think, 22 kilometers is a long way for the start of the season. We're similar in England, it gets, at the worst in winter, in like December, it gets light at, yeah, 8 o'clock. And the sun sets about half past four, similar to you, and that's... Yeah, I don't see sunlight in the winter apart from at weekends. And I used to train, the last few years I've been training in the winter after work in the dark because not too far from me we have a river that's fairly flat when there's no wind and the tide has to be in. Only sometimes is the tide in after work. But the tide has to be in and there has to be no wind, otherwise it's just a bit too dangerous to be doing it in the dark and on my own. But when the conditions are right I try and go out. But it's so unmotivating in the dark, in the cold, in the rain, on my own. And, yeah, trying to fit in something long to train for the Carolina Cup would be really difficult, but I guess a lot of people there would have the same issue. You have to cross train or I guess get fit in other ways.
Caroline Cook: Yeah. Wow, you're really committed. Paddling in the dark, do you have do you put, do you wear a headlamp and do you have lights on your board?
Holly Pye: I can have lights on my board for safety, a bit like boats have a red light so that people know I'm there if they were were going past in a boat. But it's such a quiet area that I don't think many boats would come by. Actually, one time I had a police boat come up to me and they were like, "What are you doing?" And I said, "what I was doing?" And they were like, "okay we can't tell you to get off the water, but we've never seen anybody paddle boarding up here in the dark before". And Yeah, I've tried with a headlamp, but it makes it actually harder to see, because it's like a spotlight. And, I find it much easier with the moonlight, and there's some roads nearby, so there's street lights and things. So the area isn't pitch black, it's... It's lit, but it's not lit enough for other people to see me, but it's lit enough that my eyesight can adjust and I can see what's going on. But that's why I prefer to do it when there's no wind and it's quite a calm evening. If there's wind I tend to not go just because you never know. When you can't see what's coming, you could fall and hurt yourself and nobody would know that you were there. It is a bit risky.
Caroline Cook: Do you bring your phone with you with the your Paddle Logger app so you can send the flare if you need to?
Holly Pye: Yeah, I do. So I track my sessions using Paddle Logger and there's a function on there called Paddle Live. So I can set emergency contacts. Like my family or close friends who are nearby, they can see where I am so they can track my live location whilst I'm paddling and they also get a text, they get a notification when I've started paddling and when I finish so they can see that I've got off the water safely and that works really well when I'm hoping somebody's going to cook me dinner in time for me to get home. It doesn't happen very often but now and then it's Holly finished paddling one minute ago, great, perfect time to get started with cooking dinner.
Caroline Cook: Wow, that's really cool. I always text my husband, okay I'm coming home and he's okay should I start the dinner now? Yes please.
Holly Pye: Yeah, so Paddle Logger is really good actually if you have a, if you have an iPhone because it can just do all of that automatically. If you only have an iPhone. That's the only downside. But hopefully one day in the future they will be able to develop it for Android as well. One day. But it's a good feature for anybody else.
Caroline Cook: I'd love to get it once they come out with an Android version.
Maddi Leblanc: Oh yeah we'll send it over to you, Caroline!
Caroline Cook: Ha. That's so cool. You actually text someone when you start paddling and then when you finish. Cause usually I'll text my husband before I go out on the water and I'll be like, Okay, I'm going out at Ashbridge's Bay. And I'll tell him like, "I'll be like roughly an hour and then I go out", I come back and I text him and I say, I'm still alive.
Holly Pye: Yeah, I used to do the same, but it literally, it texts them saying you started your session and then there's a link so they can tap the link and it takes them to a webpage with your exact location with a map and a flashing red dot to say where you are and your coordinate. And it also tells them your phone battery. So if your phone is on 5%, then they know that it might die, and obviously if it dies, then they won't know your location. Then, yeah, when you end, when you stop tracking, it says that, you've ended your session and you're okay and if you did get into difficulty, you can send an electronic flare. So that person will get a text saying they're in trouble. Please call the emergency services and it's got like your coordinates your what three words location. So it's really good for safety in that kind of, in that kind of respect when I'm paddling in the dark.
Caroline Cook: That's really important because I find that switching from spring canoe kayak to SUP I found it so different because when you sprint canoe kayak, you always go out with a coach, you always go out with a training group because if you fall in, you need to be rescued or, just in case. But then when I started SUP, I was having trouble finding people to paddle with because everyone just goes out at their own schedule. The community is a lot smaller and if I waited until I could paddle with someone every time, I would never paddle, I would paddle like once every, once a week or once every two weeks because it's hard. It's a sport where it's a lot of adults who are also working full time and safety is really important to me. That's why you know, like you're using the app and I'm texting my husband because I mean you just never know what's gonna happen when you're out there in the winter. I paddle with a a full PFD. I have one of the by Vaikobi ones so it's very high vis so you could see me out on the water which I think is really important and I bring my phone with me. But I have trouble fitting my phone into my little waist belt, so I don't bring it with me anymore. But I always text my husband to let him know when I've left and when I come back. Yeah.
Holly Pye: Yeah, sometimes I just put my phone in like an aqua pack like one of those waterproof cases, and it has a string and literally just tie it to the leash or somewhere on the deck of the board. So it's just loose. It's lying on the board, but it's there. Or if I was doing a more, I guess a more choppy ocean water paddle I have a waterproof zip pocket in my camelback in my hydration vest and I can zip it in there and it just about fits. So then it's on my person. But if, I suppose the downside is if in a situation where anybody really was in trouble and they were in the water it would be really difficult to use a phone, I think, with wet hands if you're swimming. Maybe that's something we should all practice now and again, just so that it's not a complete surprise if it ever happens.
Caroline Cook: I have my voice activated command turned on, so that I can say, Hey Google, call Steve.
Holly Pye: That's a good idea, really good idea. Do you take your phone paddling, Maddi?
Maddi Leblanc: I do because most of my paddles I do here on the Welland Canal, which it's a man made body of water that is about the recreational part of it is seven kilometres long. And so even on a windy day, it's pretty flat, so I'm never really worried about falling in and losing my phone, but the days when I go out on the lake, usually that's the days that I do just leave it at home. But those are also the days where usually I actually have a friend that lives on Lake Erie that has a boat so she'll be like my safety guide. I actually went out with her yesterday which is great. But yeah, I definitely think safety it's like such a big deal and especially in Canada Caroline can probably attest to this as well like when it is the winter and the cold water like those sessions I'll always take my phone and I'll always make sure my phone is fully charged, cause when the air temperature gets really cold my phone loses battery so quick, but I don't know, I still prefer to have it as a safety mechanism, even if it does die halfway or near the end of my session, to at least have it for a little bit, I find is better than nothing, and always, yeah, touching base with an emergency contact. Sometimes just before I leave my house, I look at my mom and I'm like, "Okay, mom I'm going to the Welland River today", and same thing, I'll roughly be an hour. And she's okay! So that, just in case if the phone does die, you always do have a backup,
Holly Pye: It's so important, isn't it?
Caroline Cook: The Welland Canal just brings back memories. I've done so many regattas and races on that canal, and even time controls. In the summer, every Saturday that we weren't racing, we would go to the Welland Canal, and we would do our own little races. We'd do time controls where we would have four races, each an hour apart. So I've spent... So much time at the Welland Canal, but I love it. It's a great course when they widened it and they added that facility for the world championships with a paddle pool and everything like that is just the coolest place ever.
Maddi Leblanc: Yeah, we're so lucky. I really want them to make the paddling pool more accessible, though to stand up paddle athletes. A lot of dragon boaters will train there in the winter, and they have a few rowing machines set up. So they have the ergs, and then, for the dragon boaters, they have the long benches that sit across the pool. So it's perfect for a short stroke, but I wanted to ask them the one day, I'm like, "can I stand? On your bench". I was like, "I really want to paddle" and they looked at me like I had five heads. They were like, "we'll talk to someone about it, we'll get back to you". No one's gotten back to me yet, but that's okay. I'll just pester them this winter. Oh man. Honestly, I enjoyed this conversation a lot, like just chatting with you on a personal level and allowing listeners to learn a little bit more about you and all of the challenges you've had to face. But just how at the end of the day, you haven't let any, anything stop you from doing what you love and you're out there. Literally almost every single day paddling, and you work full time, you're such a hard worker, and it's yeah, you're a phenomenal human, so Holly and I were very stoked we got to chat with you for a bit today.
Caroline Cook: I was in good company. Thanks so much for having me on and thanks for the chat. It was fun!
Holly Pye: Oh, it was so great to chat with you. Thanks so much for joining us. Really enjoyed it. Do you have any sponsors or anywhere people can get in touch with you if they have any questions or if there's any paddlers out there or people who are struggling they are hard of hearing or they're deaf and they want some advice and maybe want to get in touch with you. Is there any way that they can get in touch?
Caroline Cook: So I have a website, it's www. carolinecook.ca and on that website it just has a little bio and a blog that I update once in a while. And also thanks to my sponsors, Infinity and Union Hearing Aid Centre in Toronto has been a big supporter of mine as well since I was young. I got all my ear moulds and hearing aids from them and I get my new cochlear implants from them as well as the customer support so yeah, a big thank you to them.
Holly Pye: We've really enjoyed having you on the podcast today. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks so much for listening to our episode with Caroline Cook. It was really interesting to hear all about her story with paddling, her history in paddling, and what it's like to be deaf on the water. We really enjoyed recording this episode, so we hope that you liked listening to it. Please leave us a rating, follow Rise and Glide, and stay tuned for next week's episode.
Maddi Leblanc: Rising Glide is brought to you by the team behind Paddle Logger. Get more from your paddling with the Paddle Logger app. Find it on the Apple App Store today.
