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Tides are a basic subject that all Sea Kayakers should be aware of, whether from the Great Lakes or not. I created this presentation as a beginning step on my road to the ACA ICE, or the Instructor Certification Exam for my ACA Instructor Certification. The material is intended to be very basic as presented to beginners, so some information is vastly condensed and simplified. The objective for the instructor candidate is to present a subject in 10 minutes or less that covers the basics and uses an instructional method within the classroom.

Personally I was challenged by the objective to present tides for sea kayakers within a 10 minute time limit. But I endeavoured with the help, or hindrance depending on your view point of Microsoft PowerPoint to use the slides to keep me to 1:00 minute per slide and cover the topic in as much detail as possible.

The main feedback I got from this method was that it is clearly too talky and does not offer much of an opportunity for student interaction. I agree with this assessment and would in the future most likely try to do some hands on visualization of the rule of twelfths involving containers and water that would illustrate rather than narrate the key points. However I did have a cool logo, and lots of info for the student to walk away with.

I hope to present a series of posts on the experience of going through the IDW/ICE process that might prove helpful to other paddlers considering this as a development option.
It was a challenging and enriching experience that I won’t soon forget.

I began my IDW/ICE process earlier this month, hence why I haven’t posted in a while and why John Fleming has thankfully filled in as editor in chief! This process absorbed a lot of my time and energy. Luckily my family, my job, and even the dog was behind me in achieving this goal. A BIG BIG thank you should be stated right up front to the Bloyd-Peshkins of Have Kayaks Will travel for their hospitality and generosity. I stayed with Alec and Sharon each weekend. I would return to Oak Park every evening exhausted to gourmet home cooking, a place to dry my gear and eat them out of house and home. More importantly I had two talented and like-minded paddlers who had been through the experience to sound ideas, advice and share information with. They fielded many slightly panicky phone calls from me about the challenges and urged me on towards the finish. Their wealth of knowledge, enthusiasm and positivity sustained me during what I consider to be a fairly serious milestone for me as a person and a paddler. The challenges of juggling, work, family and this certification effort were made far easier and far more fun by having them in my life.

Never underestimate the power of the paddling community to support and sustain one another. Often we critique each others decisions, viewpoints, personal relationships and skills without calling attention to the virtual, if not literal river of generosity and good will that pours forth uninhibited on a regular basis.

Derrick Mayoleth and I have both commented on the fact that the paddling community is a bit unusual. What other group of people meets someone once at an event and then a week later calls near perfect strangers up on the phone to invite themselves to stay for days/weeks of paddling and not have it be a bit weird? I struggle for analogy in this department. I played soccer with a lot of different people for a long time, we tend not crash at each other’s houses or call to discuss the sport much. Funny…

Anyhoo, looking forward to getting out on the water, and unfortunately getting into the pool. Thus is life in Michigan.

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Jeff Allen renown expedition paddler, BCU Coach, and contributor to the increasingly awesome Ocean Paddler magazine will be the WMCKA Keynote Speaker for our 2009 symposium.

Jeff Allen is one half of Sea Kayaking Cornwall. Simon Osborne being the other half.

Jeff has a vast experience with long trips and a life long love affair with the sea. It shows in his long trips at sea in circumnavigating Japan, his trip to South Georgia Island, and his writing for Ocean Paddler Magazine. Jeff has written a series of excellent and I think groundbreaking articles on incident management for Ocean Paddler. I would recommend checking them out.

WMCKA is excited to have Jeff Allen come and visit us.

I would encourage particpants to sign up on facebook and friend Jeff Allen ahead of time.

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I’ve written a couple of posts about leadership and risk assessment for sea kayaking. While writing this post, I tried to keep these other experiences firmly in mind.

My Apostle Islands experience began my leadership experience.
I had another foray into leadership in November on our Port Sheldon to Saugatuck trip.

I had some serious doubts about my performance under these conditions. Granted the November Gales trip was somewhat extreme, but I organized and planned it. So I was responsible for it.

When I was sea kayaking in Orca Island Washington, I was brave enough to ask for help/advice from Shawna and Leon on where I went wrong that day.

The answer was CLAP.

Communication
Line of Sight
Avoidance
Position

For some this is not a new term. It is straight out of the BCU playbook, so to speak. Leon also explained that people in Alpine climbing have been using it for a while to plan expeditions and trips with groups.

I am going to break CLAP down as it was shared with me and as it pertains to the events of the November 15th Trip .

Communication

Without communication you really can’t exercise any leadership with a group, everyone is acting as individuals.

Signals can be more useful than one thinks. Set down and agree on them before hand. When using signals keep it simple, paddle straight over head means come to me. Paddle held over head in both hands = stay where you are-and so forth.

A marine radio is dead useful when there is more than one radio in the group. With only one radio, it is only useful for evac from the coast guard. I will most likely be making an investment in one in the near future.

No communication can really get you into trouble on the water, let me tell you. This is probably the key failure of the November Gales trip. Once we had split up there was no way to communicate with one another about the change of plans, or the shifting conditions. So everyone was sort of in it for themselves and the group cohesion was lost almost immediately. We also had no agreed upon signals when exiting the river channels onto Lake Michigan. I could have been leading the way out, and then turning to make sure everyone else got out. If a set looked ugly I could have held a signal for wait/stop etc.

Line of Sight

Line of sight to everyone in your group is really important. It is hard to lead a group you cannot see you, or whom you cannot see. There actually is a difference between the two as well. A good member of the group for a four star assessment will position themselves to be visible so that the leader of the group can see them, know they are safe etc.

Being able to see your group is essential to making landings, as I found out. When I lost line of sight to John and Joe during our November trip, I had to make an educated decision about where to land and then figure out how to regroup. If we had never lost communication or at least line of sight, we would have been able to use hand signals to figure out where we could all land together safely. I also lost sight of Doug for a short period during our launch out of the breakwall, where he almost hit the pier. Perhaps if we had all been within sight, he might not have come close to hitting the wall, and thus being a little jittery throughout the rest of the trip. Of course this is not what happened.

Avoidance

Avoidance of risk is easier than the cure, or so the quote goes from the BCU manual. If you can avoid a narrow jetty with breaking waves, go around it. If you can avoid a day with thirty knot winds, don’t go out, if that is not what the group is up to. (sigh). It can be avoiding risks that you know about before hand, or avoiding risks and problems that arise during the journey such as sharp pointy rocks, boats, etc. Avoidance to be fair seems to be the one that is the most subjective.

Risk I think is related to skill level, weather, tides, and a lot of other factors that are covered in the risk assessment bulls eye below. Clearly the point is that if you can avoid a risk for the group, all the better. We decided to engage the risks rather than avoid. We did adjust the trip based on the risk of getting caught in the dark. We shortened the trip by about 5 miles that day.

Position

Position for a leader is being in the best position to exercise the above. A leader of the group cannot effectively help avoid say a narrow spot between islands where the rest of the group may run into the rocks if he/she is way ahead of this obstacle. The leader cannot communicate the risk to the other members of the group, have line of sight if there is a problem to even use a signal, nor can they physically help within a reasonable amount of time with rescues, towing or any other method of avoidance.

Needless to say, despite the fact that I was positioned with Doug when he was having trouble I still didn’t have any sort of positioning to the other members of the group to help them get safely back on shore.

These are short, cursory examples of the points. Hopefully by reading the account and grasping the concepts as described, you begin to fill in the picture of how these concepts work with real events. Certainly I hope my failures serve as a warning to others. And I think from reading the above you do get the idea that I got lucky more than I was skilled.

Risk Assessment

Using this bulls eye the leader of the group can sit down with the group and plot risks from this Risk Assessment for Sea Kayaking PDF.

With the group the leader will take all of these variables and begin to plot them into the green, yellow, and red. When everything is in the yellow, and the green, it’s a go. When everything is in the yellow and the red, it’s a show stopper. The leader will have to make informed decisions based on who is paddling about whether the assessments of what is in the red, yellow or green is accurate. Beware, if you don’t know a paddler very well, everything that gets placed into the green, or even yellow might be suspect. It’s interesting to note that environmental variables such as bright sunshine may place certain people in the green, where as a dark and stormy day might put someone in the yellow.

The great thing about this is that the group participates in assessing their own risks. The leader is not the one saying, “hey, it’s a no go.” or, “you can’t come”, or, “we should paddle somewhere safer”. Hypothetically it’s the group that comes to this decision by plotting their own assessments. This might actually be a true measure of leadership. Guiding people into making their own good decisions rather than coercing, or imposing.

I encourage anyone who reads this to comment, or reply to the article with their own experiences. I have summarized a lot of this into short excerpts related to my own experiences and previous postings on this blog. Nothing can replace real world experience and coaching. I look forward to applying this to future trips and journeys.

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How to Select a Sea Kayak Tow Belt

Towing a sea kayak is risky business. Ropes and boats connected to people is indelibly linked, (pun intended) to trouble. Once you have a rope connected to a boat shenanigans can not be far behind, literally. Having done more towing in the last two years than I did in my first five years of paddling combined is probably a tell-tale sign that looking into a good tow belt is a good idea.

There are three basic systems for towing available to sea kayakers.

• Deck mounted rig: these take some epoxy work on a glass boat to get it set up but works really well the strain goes to the boat, and not the paddler. Downside is, you can’t trade off. and if you sell your boat time to epoxy up a new tow rig. My friend Jim Svensson has one on his NDK Explorer. It’s a sweet rig that he used often on our Apostle Islands trip. Also when you have to unlink, you have to depend on a good float to find your line again. The rope is behind you and restowing it is a pain at sea.
• PFD Mounted Rig: these are great because it’s one less piece of gear to have strapped on. Problem is the strain on the body is too high for long tows.
• Belt Mounted Tow: these systems seem to be the most flexible with the strain on the paddler coming at the right part of the body. They do have disadvantages to the deck mount. But a good belt tow can be traded off and will work really well in a variety of conditions.

One note that I always like to offer is to mention that Inuit Kayakers had a couple of things right. They put the weight on the boat, not on the paddler. So all the lines, the harpoons, the norsaq all went on the kayak. This presents its own problems, entanglement, windage etc. I am personally not a fan of deck mounted tows, despite this claim. Mainly because once you have it installed you’re guaranteed to need a belt to swap with another paddler, or you’re going to get a new boat. May as well buy a good belt system.

Here are a few things to consider when selecting a tow rope belt.

First and foremost is the storage of the rope when not in use. Believe it or not you aren’t towing most of the time. Thank God. So the storage of the rope has to be compact and flat so as not to interfere with your paddle stroke, your roll, and your general mobility. Bulk is friction and therefore resistance to all of your strokes. This said if you can make what you put on your body small and compact do it. This was my main complaint with the Salamander rig I bought almost seven years ago. Very bulky, very big, and interfered with everything, it was literally always in the way.

Second the carabiner should not have hooks, teeth, or other obstructions that otherwise interfere with cleanly clipping in to the deck lines of a sea kayak, or in the case of surf boats-the end toggles of a boat. The carabiner should be at least stainless steel, if not aluminum. We are in the Great Lakes obviously and so we don’t have to worry about corrosion of the components quite as much. The aluminum will be lighter and won’t sink the line as much. A big biner will be easier to operate in cold conditions with gloves, mittens, or cold hands. Brian Nystrom has a great web album of some modifications he performed on his Northwater rig, the picture below is of the carabiner he replaced.

Third length of tow, a good length is probably somewhere between 30-40 feet. There is certainly some debate amongst coaches on 40 being too long, and 30 being too short, but all would agree that 50 is way too long. Longer lines than 40 presents problems for distance between the victim and the sled dog. Shorter presents problems in surf when towing a sea kayak. Sometimes you want a wave between you and the boat, but not quite two waves. If a sea kayak you’re towing is surfing towards you on a short rope less than 30 it’s not a good day.

Fourth if you can find a rig with a floating line get it. But not at the expense of the other items I mentioned. It saves time to not have to haul line up from the deep.

Fifth, make sure there is a good quick release. Being able to let go in a hurry is sometimes very critical. You may have to customize it to make sure you can find it quick. Some industrious souls have rigged wiffle balls and other devices to make them easy to find. Just make sure they don’t get in the way of paddling and cause you to release the belt accidentally.

After watching some other folks use their tow systems, and bemusedly scratching my head at my reluctance to replace my old Salamander rig, I decided to get a Sea Tec from Northwater. Its gotten rave reviews from a number of BCU Coaches, and a number of folks I paddle with use them. The bag seems big enough to re-stow quickly, (biggest pet-peeve of salamander) and when re-stowed on land it repacks small enough to be out of the way for paddling.

If I’ve forgotten or overlooked something please feel free to add a comment to the post.

Here’s to hoping I won’t have to use it-yeah right!

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Managing Inexperienced Paddlers on the Water

In 2006 I led a Sea Kayaking trip in the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior. To say that I led the trip is a stretch. I will say it was a great experience to learn how to lead a trip.

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Myself and Jim Svensson took two more inexperienced paddlers to paddle through the islands in July of 2005. I won’t give a blow by blow of the account. But I will offer some advice for other sea kayakers who are thinking of taking less experienced paddlers on a trip.

Jim Svensson and I are both BCU 4 Star Paddlers with thousands of miles under our hulls. We have done many trips together on Lake Superior, we have both paddled Pukaskwa National Park in Canada, we also did the Silver Islet to Rossport trip together. I have many many hours surf kayaking on Lake Michigan and even a couple of trips to the Pacific to surf. I’ve done a lot of the islands on Lake Michigan and Huron. However each of these trips was done with paddlers of at least equal paddling skill, if not higher than our own skill level. This was our first trip with beginners.

I want to start with some things about the trip to give an idea of the plan, because believe it or not I did have a plan.

We wanted to do a loop from Sand Beach back to Bayfield. We had an outfitter drop us off at Sand Beach and we would paddle back to Bayfield. We wanted to hit Sand Island with all of the caves and cliffs, and especially Devil’s Island, we also wanted to circle out and see Outer Island. Maybe even circumnavigate Outer before heading back.

Planning and Preparation for the Sea Kayaking Trip

In the early part of the spring, I paddled with the two more inexperienced paddlers (a married couple) many times. Though one of them had a lot of obligations and was not able to do the training trips as often as what would be necessary.

I made a point of taking them out and doing rescues. We performed t-rescues, eskimo rescues, all-in rescues, and even a hand of god or two for fun. I wanted to get them comfortable with the idea that maybe not everything would go as planned. Also I wanted them to not freak out if someone swam, which I was predicting might happen if there were any clapotis waves near cliffs or caves. I also worked with one of them on developing a roll, directional strokes and some surfing.

I also took one of them out to Ludington to the WMCKA spring gathering. We paddled into 25 knot winds on Sunday afternoon and then surfed back to shore. Great fun, but also an eye opener in watching how little progress our duckling made.

They key thing is that one of our paddlers was really taking the trip quite seriously, and the other did not prepare.

The couple did however take my warnings about cold water, and possible cold weather seriously and bought a ton of gear before the trip. One bought a Goretex Meridian Drysuit, the other bought a really nice IR Drytop and a farmer jane wet suit. I felt that they were at least prepared from an equipment standpoint.

As the days wound down to the trip, our other paddler still engaged in work duties had not been out to paddle very much. I made a conscientious effort to talk with her about the challenges of the trip and to make sure she understood them.

This is really where I failed her. She could not understand the challenges of the trip, because she had no frame of reference for how strong the wind might be, how big the waves would be, or how unrelenting Lake Superior could be. I wanted everyone to have a good trip, so I allowed her to go. When really I should have just been a good friend and told her we would modify the trip plan to be less ambitious, or that she could not go.

I asked Doug Van Doren about leadership on the water. His take is that the strongest paddler will often naturally end up leading the other paddlers through an emergency, whether or not this person is designated as the leader or not.

With that in mind, I was committed whether I knew it or not.

Crossings into the Wind

Our troubles really began on the leg between Devil’s Island and South Twin. There is a long leg far from shore where there is no protection. One also has to go around Rock Island. The weather for most of the day around Devil’s Island had been ideal. It was very calm with no huge waves. I snaked my foster silhouette into every cave I could fit into. Once finished we ended up on the south east corner of the island looking at the crossing. The wind was getting up and we had to make a break for it.

Part of the problem with the Apostles is the designated campsites. Every paddling group must designate which campsite they will be staying at on what night. Under ideal conditions this is fine, but it unfortunately influences decisions with some of the more OCD folks. I am more of a free spirit in this regard. I feel that as long as it’s safe, and that I am low impact I am willing to bend a few rules. But others tend to take this quite literally to the point of jeopardizing safety, which I am OCD about. In this instance I should have been more vocal about making sure we were safe, rather than jeopardizing the groups safety in a crossing that one of us wasn’t read for.

About thirty minutes into the crossing the wind picked up to about 15 knots. To Jim and I this was a good thing, we despise flat conditions and would rather have a little texture to remind us of why we drove 14 hours to paddle. To our inexperienced paddlers it was an insurmountable obstacle. Our least prepared paddler began to waver, then fade, and finally to become unstable. I remember looking at the conditions and seeing how slowly she was moving, and I had clipped my tow carabiner to my life jacket prior to starting the crossing.

Jim and I began using the GPS as a gauge of how slowly we were going we started at three miles per hour, then two, then one.

I saw the first accidental dip of a vertical paddle and a quick low brace to recover. After she almost went into the drink, I made an instantaneous decision to tow her without asking her. I glided up to her bow and told her, “We’re going to do a little towing to get around the tip of Rock Island.” She looked almost relieved.

I began to haul ass for the northern tip of Rock Island right away. Pretty soon we were halfway, then three quarters of the way, and then Jim thankfully offered to take over for a bit. Our other inexperienced paddler seemed to be struggling, but making progress. Jim also really hauled it and pretty soon, we were discussing linked towing. So I clipped in on the lead to Jim’s Explorer’s bow and began to lead again. Once we did this we were really making good progress. Ironically once I had made it to the tip of Rock Island I had to pee like you wouldn’t believe. I can still remember two years later how bad I had to go. We were now with the wind, but I unclipped to pee on Rock Island. Jim led the tow the remaining half mile to South Twin.

In that 30 seconds I believe we corrected a very bad situation. The wind continued to grow the sky grew gray and the wind built eventually to about 25 knots. So quick and decisive decisions on the water tend to make for better feelings off the water, rather than worrying about someone’s feelings. I remember that look on her face when I clipped in to this day. Her face just said, “I surrender”. Also I can remember that feeling of relief for my own part as Rock Island quickly came into view. I got some serious satisfaction while I was towing to hear Jim report our speed from his deck GPS. I could barely hear him through the increasing howl in the wind, “3 miles per hour, four, four point five”.

We tried to quickly cover the distance before the weather built ahead of us. We might have had to consider turning and going with the wind, back to Devil’s Island. A quartering sea and that small slip on the south end would have been hard to hit dead on with the wind. The consequences for missing would have been catastrophic, because there is no land fall between Devil’s Island and Minnesota.

Lesson’s Learned from Tow #1

1. Quick Decision to tow based on decreasing speed and stability of the weaker paddler was a good decision.
2. Linked towing exerted far less energy than towing solo.
3. A Camelback full of gatorade does hydrate a paddler very well, but also makes them have to pee every 20 minutes.

Tow #2 From Cat Island to Outer Island

The next day we wound down around Ironwood Island and the southern tip of Cat Island for lunch.
The wind had begun to build again as we ate lunch. It was however a beautiful bright skied day. We started to head out to Outer Island with the intent of maybe seeing the light house on the north end.

Again I should stress that trip plans should have been changed by me to perhaps camp where we were, or to run with the wind until we were in the lee of the islands and then camp somewhere else. With the wind already beginning to make some beautiful blue green waves and foamy whitecaps, it would be tough going for our less experienced paddlers, but a fun day playing in the wind for Jim and myself.

However the first day turned out fine even with the towing, so I made a decision to go for it. We quickly ran into problems as the wind out of the north east was beginning to really build some nice swells. This made things very difficult for our least experienced paddler. She quickly slowed to around one mile an hour. She also became unsteady. I then quickly made another decision to clip in and tow her. Jim then clipped in and led the tow for about twenty minutes. It was tough going. We swapped spots on the lead twice. Finally the wind had begun to howl around the southern tip of Outer Island, which is a sand spit. It offered no protection. We knew the camp site was on the other side. So we struggled valiantly around the tip of the island for at least another twenty minutes.

I remember the white caps really beginning to pile over the deck of my kayak, digging my carbon fiber superior Greenland paddle into the water and torquing my torso with every once of strength I possessed. I don’t know how much strength I had left, but I remember thinking, wow! I really wish I could turn and sprint to catch that wave. (I think it is really I kind of mental illness to be thinking of surfing under those circumstances).

We were defeated as we rounded the sand spit. We started to wash onto the beach. Which was steep and cobbled. We began having the time honored catastrophic problem of using ropes in dangerous situations. The stronger paddler was being out paced by a side surfing sea kayak victim. I watched our weaker paddler side surf into the beach under tow, and Jim and I frantically trying to make a decision on what evil thing to do next. Either un-clip and let her go, or try to pull her back out to sea. I made the decision for myself. I quickly released my tow from the victim, as Jim was in the lead, but Jim did not. This led to some tangles and serious crashing on the beach with our two boats lined together. It was an ugly landing. Jim and I managed to bring the kayaks up the beach above the water line.

Tow #2 Lessons Learned

1. Linked towing when a landing is imminent has its limitations.
2. Communication between the two towing paddlers is crucial
3. Ropes and surf landings are always problematic.

In retrospect once we had rounded the tip of the island we should have dropped to a single tow so that one paddler could make a quick decision about when to drop the tow and just wait to pick up the pieces from the landing.

We managed to get everyone on dry land on Outer Island safely. So there were some good things about the day.

The next day we did an evaluation of the weather. It looked like the next day would have a twenty knot wind from the north east. And then would start to veer to due east. With all of the islands we had left to do, and the prospect of possibly more towing. We decided to make a break for it and run with the wind to get as close to Bayfield as we could with the twenty knot tail wind.

As I remember the outside of Stockton Island was quite beautiful. There were many sea stacks. As it turned out with the tail wind at 20 knots all day, we covered 21 miles in relatively short order. We decided to run all the way in to Bayfield that night. We had finally altered the trip to meet the group which was probably the best thing we did from a leadership perspective. Our two inexperienced paddlers were pretty toasted. But very happy to be on dry land.

I’ve included some of the gory details but not all. I think the main lessons to be learned from all of this is the following:

• Know the limitations of the paddling group and adjust the trip accordingly
• Be flexible and prepared to change the trip midstream to meet the needs of the weakest member
• Be prepared to tell someone they can’t come if the trip is not flexible.
• Be prepared to tow if the group begins to slow when performing an open crossing
• Watch the weather and know what the back-out plans were
• Be ready to make decisions quickly and to worry about hurt feelings later

Thankfully there have been no hurt feelings from this trip. But I still have some very serious nagging guilt for not being prepared to adjust course or say no when the trip preparation and training didn’t come together as I would’ve liked. In truth if our other inexperienced paddler had swum, needed a tow, or gotten sea sick, we could have been really hosed.

As with just about everything I do, I think there is a certain element of risk involved. The benefits certainly outweighed the risks for this trip. I wouldn’t advise someone not to do a trip based purely out of fear of the unknown. But having had a lot of practice in wind and waves, my BCU training, and being physically fit shape that perspective. I would really encourage folks with only one or two of these elements to seek out the training, and also to head out to play in conditions as much as they can within a margin of safety.

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Compulsory, like latin or greek to a traditional classic education, I went back to get my 3 star. I speak as if I did it with the thought I dropped something on the pavement and went back for it. Not sure.
I feel ready to take my next step towards my Coach 2. I It just seemed funny last night when I went through the hoops, because I already had my 4 star, and I had also taken my canoe safety test. Was it necessary? Maybe not, is a reverse figure of 8 really ever strictly necessary? No, but having done it, I can say I’ve passed the exam, no one can take it away from me, much like crossing the line (the equator in sailor speak). It is a rite of passage, and for me it is part of the experience.

Ron Smith made an excellent suggestion that I travel outside the midwest for my coach 2, to get some new perspectives on the whole thing, maybe hear some things from people out on the east, west, or some unknown foreign coast.

I agree. New perspectives are needed.