Kayak tips for women

[lovelygamer]

Thank you!! I did not think of all of these things. He did send me to the paddling website and I watched a video about getting in and out of your boat.

I can swim decently, and will be wearing a pfd. If you live in Maryland and can't swim-for shame! Most people I know from our state were born with gills.

I am looking forward to the challenge and something new. Appreciate the feedback.

[OakLeaf]

Wear your cycling gloves or pick up a pair of neoprene paddle grips. Paddles will blister your thumbs pretty good if you don't have calluses there.

If you have a choice of boat you'll be renting, ask the people to talk to you about fit. My boat is too big for me and it just makes it not very much fun, so I don't paddle near as much as DH would like.

I'm with Irulan on the PFD. We paddle only in very flat shallow water, and I feel okay about my swimming ability, but you just never know. It's why water sports are the most dangerous sports there are. You could hit your head, or sprain a limb, and in the water there's no sitting on the ground for a couple of minutes to collect yourself.

Have fun!

[Brandi]

Ok this may sound funny. But don't drink a lot. Then you have to get in and out of the boat. We kayak a lot and that is my biggest problem! Hahah. Just enjoy it. Once you get used to the balance and stuff it is like riding a bike. Oh And sunscreen sunscreen sunscreen! Oh and a camera in a plastic bag.Have fun though I love kayaking out in the ocean here where we live.

[Irulan]

if you are not in a spray skirt, don't forget to sunscreen your feet!

We make up what we call a take out bag with a complete change of dry clothes and shoes for when you are off the river. It feels so much better to get dry pants on, a clean shirt, dry underwear and dry shoes.

I disagree with "don't drink much because it's a pain to get out of the boat to pee". Sure it is, but so is dehydration, over exposure to the sun, and potentially heatstroke. OK, so heat stroke is probably a far reach for an hour or two on the water but ..headaches and dehydration are not. Really, don't drink much water when spending time out in in the sun? It's a nuisance to get off your bike to pee ( and to find a discrete place to do it instead of just jumping into the water) too but I don't ever see the advice on this board to not drink very much when riding a bike...I'm really having trouble with the laissez-faire attitude towards water safety in some of these posts. Water depth is irrelevant IMO, people down in bathtubs. And heat as an excuse to not wear a life vest? I spent three weeks in 117 degree heat on the Grand Canyon, and plenty of it is flatwater, and I work my PFD all day long on the water.

[GLC1968]

if you are not in a spray skirt, don't forget to sunscreen your feet!

And if you are wearing shorts - on your thighs. OMG, the burn I got on my top/inner thighs the first time I went kayaking was bad. I hadn't worn sunscreen on my lower body because I thought I'd have a skirt. My legs were FRIED.

I agree very much with the recommendation to try rocking your boat a bit while still near a dock (or another boat or something you can hold on to). It really helps to get a feel for how tippy it really is. And relax (if possible). Being totally tense makes it harder to control the boat.

Oh one more thing - if you are renting, make sure the place sets you up correctly in the boat with (here is the key) both foot rests at equal distances. One of the girls on our trip had her foot rests slightly unequal and she had a very hard time controlling the boat. She kept always leaning to one side and turning even when she didn't want to!

And have a blast!!

[OakLeaf]

Well, I would agree to drink water and deal with peeing, but it's NOT an easy thing getting out of your boat to pee in the water. Not even remotely comparable to getting off your bike to pee in a cornfield! I wouldn't even attempt getting out of my boat in the water unless there was another kayaker whose boat I could use to brace mine while I get back in. And I don't recommend anyone trying it unless they've at least had a little training in rescues. You will have your BF with you, but do both of you know how to get you back into your boat once you've gotten out (or even how to get out in the water, without capsizing)?

Pee in your pants if you need to. You'll be washing your boat out and changing your shorts at the end of your paddle anyway...

[withm]

where are you going to be paddling? I'm always looking for new paddling spots. I'll be at Assateague somewhere on Sunday.

[Cataboo]

Ziplock bags over you camera is a recipe for getting your camera fried.

For those of you that are saying don't wear your pfd and just have it on your boat - next time you go out on the water. Capsize.

Your hat will be going in one direction, your glasses will be falling off, your water bottle will be coming out of your boat, and any cameras in ziplock bags will be toast.

Then tell me how long it takes you to get your PFD off your boat, put it on securely & tightly, and whether you still have a boat or a paddle afterwards.

Then consider that if you are accidentally capsizing in "flat water" or so, generally speaking either conditions and wind have picked up or a boat has thrown up a huge wake - and realize that if you accidentally capsize, you are going to be freaked out, panicked, and your boat & paddle will be drifting away unless you keep a hold of them... So at least multiply your time above by 1.5 because of the freakout factor. It is absolutely amazing how panicked people can get when they capsize in a kayak - even when they're wearing a life vest & they know how to swim & they're only in 4 feet of water. Which is another reason to practice wet exits.

As for life jackets being hot... it's a water sport. get wet, splash yourself. Invest in a nice low profile life vest. I use a kokatat sea02, which has an all mesh back. NOt much in the front, it's a hybrid life jacket with about 10 lbs of built in floatation which is more than enough to keep me floating, but also has a co2 tank attached to it that will inflate the vest to 22 lbs of floatation if I pull a toggle - it's also got a tube I can blow air into it to fill it up.

As for peeing - I agree, drink a lot of water, don't dehydrate yourself. Jump out of the boat if you have to pee & don't have a choice of getting out. Carry a paddle float, pump, & stirrup & know how to get back into your boat and be able to self rescue.

As for seats - I've got no problems sitting all day long in any of my kayaks. Wilderness systems have extremely nice seats in the tempest or tsunaumi, they're like barca loungers.

Camelbaks - I put one behind my seat. People also get little backpacks that piggyback onto the back of their pfd & hold a hydration bladder. You can also stick a camelbak on your front deck.

[ClockworkOrange]

We had a Sevylor inflatable canoe for about 6 years but did not use it much, too much hassle but managed to sell it on ebay without much financial loss!

Six weeks ago we decided to buy 2 x one-man sit-on kayaks, OMG absolutely brilliant.

We bought the Emotion Temptation, for us they are faultless.

Despite being a bit of an old biddy, I can manage to help lift them on top of our car.

Next I want to experiment with falling out and seeing if I could turn the kayak right way up again and then see how much of a fool of myself I might make by trying to climb back on!!! Mind you, for this I will want full sun and a very hot day.





PS Best of all I discovered today that paddling a kayak helps diminish batwings! :-)

[ny biker]

<big bump>

I've been wanting to try flat water kayaking for a while, like a few years now. The other day I got an email from REI about local events. Usually I just delete those emails but this time I read it, clicked some links... long story short I've registered for a beginning kayak class. It's still a few weeks away. So here I am looking for advice on what to expect, what to wear, etc. No surprise, there's some great info here and in related threads.

I've gone canoeing before with family, on lakes. Never tried kayaking though. Should be fun!