Off-the-shelf kayak lights are an excellent way to increase safety when night paddling. By raising your light a few feet above the deck you can ensure it remains unblocked by your body and visible through the full 360. Plus, it won’t nuke your night vision by shining directly in your eyes. Continue reading
My Personal Transport Team (AKA my long suffering wife) dropped me with my boat and gear at Deep Cove about 14:00 hours on December 30th. I’d been waiting for a window of clear weather; the temperatures are lower under cloudless skies, but it’s easier to stay safely warm in dry cold than in icy rain. That’s true both in the kayak and in camp. Continue reading
by Philip Torrens
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the boathouse,
Not a creature was stirring, no, not a sea-louse.
The sea-socks were hung by the Coleman with care,
in hopes that Saint Neptune soon would be there. Continue reading
My prior experience with commercially-made kayak sails has been mostly with the Pacific Action sail and the Spirit Sail. I used them both for more than a decade on my previous kayak, and loved the versatility of being able to raise either or both so I could sail in anything from strong winds to gentle breezes. They were especially fast on broad reaches. But they are functionally square rigs, optimized for downwind sailing. On my new kayak, I wanted better across-the-wind performance and some upwind ability. So I upgraded to a Falcon Sail.
I’ve been messing about with commercial and home-brew kayak sails for more than a decade, using them for both day trips and expeditions. After owning a Falcon Sail for nearly a year, here’s my take on the installation process (I’ll cover the sail’s performance in another post.)
To help you put my experiences in context, let me cop up front to being mechanically declined; I do a lot of hacks and mods to my kayaks, but I rarely get things exactly right the first time. So my first attempts at installing the sail involved many loud curses along the lines of “Come on, you Falcon thing!”
There are valid reasons to always carry a hand pump when sea kayaking. In my home Canadian waters, a bailer of some sort is a legal requirement. If you’re assisting another paddler, a hand pump lets you empty the rescuee’s cockpit while leaving their sprayskirt fastened to keep out waves. It’s smart to have a manual back-up to electric devices. And I have successfully self-rescued using only a hand pump in moderate conditions. But when the surf really hits the fan, I don’t count on a hand pump alone to save my soggy ass.
My first generation electric kayak pump. The grey metal nozzle on the left side of the battery box is a pneumatic switch, activated by an air button at the far end of plastic tubing.
Ever had a friend tension a piece of cloth with their hands while you sliced it with scissors? Then you know that stretching fabric over sharp edges is an excellent way to cause running cuts (or “progressive failure” if you’re a materials geek). Run your finger along the outside of your sea kayak’s cockpit rim, paying particular attention to the top and bottom corners of the lip. Unless it’s been factory equipped with trim, there are your sharp edges. And your stretchy neoprene sprayskirt deck? There’s your tensioned fabric, sawing itself against those edges every time you pull the skirt on or off.
The wind had been whipping in from the Strait of Georgia at 20 knots for several hours, carving the water into a bouncy succession of blue and white furrows. That made for a bit of a grunt paddling my sea kayak from English Bay out towards Point Grey, but also for a lively ride as my bow cleaved through each oncoming wave and slammed down into its following trough.
The sun was shining when you launched your kayak this morning. But shortly after noon, it clouded over and the rain set in. You aren’t surprised: you are paddling the British Columbia coast not far south of Alaska, just off the most verdant rainforest on Earth.
The fjord-like channel you’re travelling offers few landing spots, so it’s six in the evening before you ground the bow of your kayak as gently as possible on a cobble beach. Hours of rain have given you bathtub hands.
Recently, I got in a quick kayak voyage through our local and lovely Gulf Islands. In addition to great weather and excellent company, I enjoyed three animal encounters.
On Cabbage Island, I watched a deer graze. It must have been commuting from one of the larger islands, since Cabbage is too small to support a herd. On the islands with permanent human populations, some residents consider deer to be, at best, venison-in-waiting, or at worst, vermin (they pilllage the gardens many islanders grow). But on this uninhabited islet, this doe foraged only for natural foodstuffs. Continue reading
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