Dabbling in Adventure at Sea : Recreation: Outdoors specialist ‘turns people on to mother ocean’ with kayaking course.

An uneasy balance gave way to a wobble, a jiggle and a loud splash.

Seated safely in his kayak a few feet away, Jared Roehrig, 12, laughed so hard he almost followed his father into the drink. Jim Roehrig sputtered to the surface and grabbed onto his own empty vessel, the confounded kayak that had deposited him into the calm, cold waters of Ventura Harbor.

Climbing back aboard would have been decidedly more difficult than slipping off had not Roehrig listened to the instructions of Warren Glaser, a former longtime Nordhoff High teacher who offers a broad array of aquatic and recreational classes and excursions.

The nine students seated in Glaser’s colorful plastic kayaks a stone’s throw from a launching ramp Sunday morning clearly were beginners, and eight were secretly gleeful they had not been the first to capsize.

Roehrig clutched the kayak while watching helplessly as his paddle drifted out of reach.

“Well, Jim, you are officially up a creek without a paddle,” Glaser said from the ramp. “You did the right thing by sticking by your boat and letting the paddle go. Better to have a kayak without a paddle than have a paddle without a kayak.”

What perfect sense. Throughout the eight-hour “Maiden Voyage” class, Glaser’s advice was sage spiced with deadpan humor.

“You could tell a mile away he was a teacher,” a much drier Roehrig said later. “Warren was absolutely brilliant. He took us through the entire process of kayaking.”

First things first. Glaser instructed Roehrig to imagine himself a seal climbing onto a rock, to make his body rigid and shimmy all the way into the cockpit before rolling over into a seated position. “Don’t bend your knees,” Glaser said.

A moment later, Roehrig, a Sherman Oaks businessman, was paddling merrily around the harbor with the others, learning to steer and turn and do it all without putting undue stress on his back. “Lean forward, don’t lean back,” Glaser admonished.

Glaser, a 42-year resident of Ventura, has not looked back himself since launching Outdoor and Aquatic Recreation Specialists (OAARS) six years ago. Along with a small staff that includes his 33-year-old son, David, Glaser offers instruction and tours in 23 water and dry land recreational activities. The most popular are day trips to the Channel Islands for kayaking and scuba diving.

“The main appeal is the intimacy, the way you can interface with mother ocean very quickly,” Glaser said. “You can get close to marine mammals and birds much quicker this way than any other fashion. And it is pretty much unintrusive to the environment.

“We turn people on to the ocean, help them gain respect for the lady.”

Glaser also referred to the ocean as “the lady” to the four men, four women and one boy who made up the beginner class. There is no point fretting about wind or waves, he said, because “This lady we will take, we must take on her terms.”

The orientation also included safety rules (“Never try anything you can’t do while smiling,” Glaser said), and information about various types of kayaks, life vests and paddles (“Never call them oars,” he said).

Next came questions from the beginners. One addressed what Glaser calls “the S word.” He offered actuarial rebuttals to assuage fears.

“More people are killed by pigs and by bee sting than by sharks,” he said. “There are great whites in waters near Monterey, and they are slowly moving south, but none have been reported near here.”

There was, in fact, nothing to fear all day besides a bit of wind that cropped up when the fog burned off in the early afternoon. The wind kept the group from venturing too far out to sea, but the kayakers did make it out of the harbor, around a breakwater and to a nearby beach.

Seated on the sand, Glaser gave the group a rudimentary oceanography lesson, discussing how the tides and wind affect kayaks, the proper way to approach a wave and how to maneuver through pounding surf. “Gravity is your best ally,” he said.

“Warren told us that kelp beds are also our friends,” said beginner Belinda Wallace, 35, a medical office administrator from Thousand Oaks. “If you get tired, find the kelp and stay there because it will be a calm area.”

Late in the afternoon, Glaser instructed the group to paddle around the breakwater once more, but a few of the beginners begged off because they were cold and tired. Michelle Surfas, Glaser’s assistant of four years, brought them back to the launching ramp.

On the way back, the group lauded Glaser.

“It’s not so much working for Warren as working with Warren,” said Surfas, 22. “It’s fun and always a learning experience. I learn something new every time I go with him. He is always adding new insights about the ocean and about the Earth.”

Wallace braved the afternoon breeze and paddled all the way back to the launching ramp. Only on her return did Glaser notice that an emergency helmet had partially dislodged from the underside of her kayak and had been dragging through the water.

“That made you work harder,” he told Wallace. “It was like you were paddling with an anchor.”

Nevertheless, Wallace pronounced herself only slightly sore Tuesday. And she is ready for step two: a day trip to the Anacapa Islands, where kayakers explore caves and whatever else they might come across.

“I want to go out in a group again. I’m not ready to go by myself,” she said. “There was more to it than I thought, a lot of technique learning how to turn and how to stabilize yourself.”

Roehrig improved his stability as the day wore on: He capsized only the one time. Not dampened at all was his enthusiasm for kayaking. Roehrig went on a day trip to Anacapa on Wednesday with Glaser and a handful of others.

OAARS will introduce about 300 people to kayaking this year and many of them will continue to enjoy the sport on their own.

“What makes it so special is that there isn’t a lot of equipment involved, not a lot of hassles and rules,” Glaser said. “You learn the basics, and it’s off you go.”