$236 / person
Our Essentials of Coastal Kayaking I, II & III series is built upon laying a foundation for new and developing sea kayakers to gain the technical knowledge, rescue skills, strokes, boat handling and judgement in order to safely and effectively begin kayaking in open water coastal environments.
This third and final class in our Essentials series is for sea kayakers progressing into open water kayaking and making short crossings exposed to the elements and changing sea state. This class is two-days in length for good reason – we cover a lot of material. Everything from trip planning, float plan creation and understanding environmental forecasting to VHF radio usage, rescues and recoveries, strokes and maneuvers and incident management is discussed.
A large portion of this class will be spent on understanding how to read water and seamanship skills, blade awareness and performative maneuvers. Students will be challenged to find comfort in their secondary stability on edge, going deeper into using an integrated paddling system (body, boat, blade) for control and efficient paddling.
By course end students should be left with a host of new skills to explore and work on, insight into holes in their knowledge base to refine in future learnings and an appreciation for open water sea kayaking with the judgement in place to make educated decisions on their readiness for such environments. This class will take place within currents, waves and wind.
A sampling of the course content includes:
- Float planning and trip plan execution
- Understanding vessel right of way
- VHF radios
- Understanding swell periods and the effects of wave refraction/reflection/diffraction
- High brace
- High brace turns
- Sculling for support
- Scramble and ladder rescues
- Emergency signaling and incident management preparedness
- Scoop and unresponsive paddler rescues
- Curl rescue
- Cleopatra’s Needle
- Bow/stern/paddle rescue
