It’s amazing how a new person asks some basic questions and becomes the topic.
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All that? Not sure what to add. I saw a lot of good answers. A good answer doesn’t have to be topped. Just agreed with.
When someone challenges my relies I try to clarify. I get criticized for not taking greater challenges, then criticized for bragging.
Members come on asking about a rec boat and end up with recommendations for a sea kayak, a wet suit and classes in rolling. Once kitted out, a novice thinks he or she can go out and do the things the experienced members do. It reminds me of a person wanting a gun for home defense or to carry. So send them to gun safety courses. At the end of several courses, they’re not prepared for armed confrontation, but they’re certified. They tested at two shots in two seconds, but real life is reacting to a gun in the face. Danger is appealing.
I couldn’t add to the conversation because I don’t have the skills to take on the conditions. My concern is how new members become the topic. If you can’t answer a question . . . Stop trying.
There were many answers to my question, but not his. I can’t answer it because I don’t haven’t experienced the environment.
The obvious answer is that classes don’t make the kayaker. Incremental exposure to situations is what creates the experience, but I don’t recall anyone saying that. My advice is to start with a small boat and grow as you gain experience. I’ve been paddling for a 15 years period and even though I travel open water, it’s alway under conditions that are matched to my limited skill.
I believe the question was asked about how do you know when conditions are too extreme for your level of experience. I can explain that for the Upper Bay, but not other areas. I believe one member did say he or she paddled that area where the accident occurred and didn’t think waves were typically more than 1 1/2 to 2 feet. The answer is they misjudged their level of skill. They misjudged conditions.
The member you’re upset about is in the Seattle area looking to get into kayaking. I haven’t heard anyone offer advice that he could start out paddling more protected areas. If anyone asked about traversing the upper Cheaspeake, I could tell you the type of boat you need to safely pass each point. Air and water temperatures during the season of the year, the danger created by a sustained Southeaat wind compared to a north or northeast, and how each changes the waves.
With all the experienced members who love to help, I’m curious why someone rom the area hasn’t offered advice on relatively safe places to practice. I have a nephew in Seattle. I might email him and ask if he can offer some advice.
There is nothing hard about this – we know what needs to happen to stay safe on the water:
- Paddle trips within your skill level (skills grow with experience and training, so trips can get more challenging as your experience and training grows)
- Be conscious of conditions (weather, tides, water level) and adjust accordingly
- Have appropriate gear for the trip you are on (boat, PFD, cold water, safety)
- Paddle in a supportive group with others of appropriate skill.
Safety is a relative term since there are inherent risks in paddling. It’s not about eliminating the risk, but taking appropriate risks for the situation you are in. Sometimes we misjudge – happens to everyone and it happened to the guys at the start of this post. Best we can do is learn from the experience and move on.
At the end of the day, we all make individual decisions about the risks we are willing to accept - where we paddle, when we paddle, and who we paddle with.
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Looks like a community guidelines reminder is in order:
Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree
You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people . Please avoid:
- Name-calling
- Ad hominem attacks
- Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
- Knee-jerk contradiction
Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.
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I think it is funny how an article that basically said “Two guys fell into the water, made a phone call and got picked up. One man claimed to be colder than the other.” has caused so much debate. Lol
Celia, your are correct. I actually didn’t miss it, but the points got lost in my translation. A public forum is a rough place to learn. My family and friends think I’m crazy for joining a forum. I agree, but where else can you find information on kayaking. They also think I’m crazy for kayaking. I disagree. My advice to new members is read every topic of interest, start to finish before even asking a question.
Posts have a rythem that can be hard to follow. It’s common to start a reply, only to look back and see four or five responses since the start of the reply. While responding to the post about your comment, you get lost in a tangle of accusations and hurt feelings.
On one hand we welcome new members, then get frustrated with their response, motive, or point of view. I joined the forum to gain information, but also to help recreation and novice kayakers develop intermediate skills. It’s hard to believe I’m the only intermediate level kayaker on the forum. I’ve seen new members join, then leave an obscure last post implying they didnt realize it was this complicated or expensive.
My impression is that new members are advised to go all out or risk death. I have a boat that’s perfect for the conditions I encounter, but was told a stable boat will become unstable under certain conditions. I know that, which is why I avoid those conditions. Despite being satisfied with my boat, my level of skill, and the limitations on the conditions I’m willing to face, I feel pressure to get out of my comfort zone and get into a boat that doesn’t match my level of skill. When I joined the forum seeking advice on a more seaworthy boat, I got no replies. I’m now content and realize I have all the challenge I need.
My point is that we should be advising people, rather than lecturing them. My comment about the bay being less than adventurous was intended to say it doesn’t offer the thrill of ocean surfing. I didn’t intend it to mean the Bay is “safe”, but it can be safe if you learn how the read conditions. Being challenged about a comment doesn’t offend me, because it’s my responsibility to communicate and clarify. I failed, so I hope that explains more accurately.
Looking back to see if there were any other posts, I see eckilson did a very good job of summarizing individual responsibility. When you venture out in a boat, you got to know your limitations.
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FYI, I did not think this one needed more voices since I am not strong in that region. But I and Jim, then just me spent about a decade visiting his relative down there once or twice a year, more often as their health failed. So we paddled the Chesapeake Bay area some. Plus a good friend had their sailboat down there for years before moving north.
The Chesapeake Bay is big, open and shallow. I did not hear you saying that it was safe, but understandable. These are two very different things.
Agree. It wasn’t you and as I said, it’s my fault for not choosing words. The last thing I want is a person in a nine foot boat paddling across the Bay because it wasn’t adventurous. It can be. I try to refer to my experience as the Upper Bay, from North Point to Tolchechester, and the rivers, tributaries and lakes up to York, PA.
For anyone who hasn’t been here and is drawn to the experience, it can sink ocean going ships. The geography makes it dynamic. At times docile, at other times dangerous. The upper bay is completely different compared to the Lower Bay, south of the Bay Bridge at Kent Island.
North West winds empty the bay. South East winds load the bay. The earth’s rotation causes higher salinity concentrations on the Eastern Shore, rivers dump silt into the current, which settle out and create shoals before and after constrictions. A South East wind, especially one’s that last longer than 24 hours, blows unrestricted up the Bay from the Ocean for over 100 miles. When it hits the confluence of the Gunpowder and Bush Rivers, it at a point where flow from the Top of the Bay meets at Poole island. The depths around there range between 30 feet up to 7 feet. When tides reverse, that becomes a churning basin. You’ll be seated in your kayak and can look at the top of some waves. My stable Tsunami starts to become a liability as the waves start to break and the boat wants to follow the curl. The key to safety is sampling it gradually, understanding the dynamics, and knowing your limitations. I paddled through the slot between Poole and Ricketts Point with 24 to 30 inch waves at our back, then turned the point into the Gunpowder to find a power boat anchored and a couple sitting in floating lawn chairs reading books on flat water. True. My sister and I laughed. Frankly, I was a bit concerned in my 145 Tsunami, but my sister in her 140 Tsunami didn even blink. I’ve since lost 30 lbs and my boat is far more responsive. The out flow toward the shipping can easy reach 3 mph. The reason I stress speed is because if you’re paddling upstream on the peak of an ebb tide, you have to paddle the boat equivalent to about 5 mph to make 2 mph progress.
Having said that, I feel the area is far less challenging than the water around Seattle, The Great Lakes, Maine, or San Francisco Bay. I prefer the less forceful periods of the Bay. From my launch, I can tell within 3 miles whether I continue or do a hairpin left and go up to 20 miles exploring up to the fall line of the Gunpowder.
It’s interesting to mention that the Bay length is a perfect interval, where there can be a high tide at the Head and Mouth of the Bay, with a low in the area around Annapolis. In comparison, the Upper Bay is half the width of the lower region. My interest is in using the power, rather than fighting it, but I’ll fight it if I have to.
Hey all. I posted this initially. For which I apologize. I just thought it was a news blurb that might be of interest to the community. I did not intend or expect to start any kind of drama. However, just like the Long Island Sound paddlers, I can be an idiot (and yeah maybe I shouldn’t have used that term for them, but I have no qualms on using it for myself.) Posting on this forum is much like taking your kayak out onto Long Island Sound on a windy day. You might think it’s just gonna be a fun little excursion but then somehow you end up clinging to a channel buoy with waves pummeling you and you’re not sure what happened. Peace.
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Narrby consider it training to prepare you for the paddling experience. At least you got a lot of replies to pick through. Not bad for a short post.
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No apology from you is needed, @narrby. The news article was worthwhile and as stated here, it was a learning experience.
Yep, experience is how you learn which places to stay away from. This forum needs some warning signs 
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For what? Despite some of the arguments, there’s a lot of good information in this thread. Learning isn’t always pretty, on the water or online…
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Sorry - didn’t mean anything personal to anyone posting here.
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Rookie,
I was the one who jumped in asking how you get experience in those conditions , I missed the posts that were delated but I have gained plenty of knowledge on this forum, not everyone has agreed with me and that is fine. I am slowly getting better in my skills and am getting better in my knowledge because of posts like this one.
Seth
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This is a great summary, thanks for posting it. I think there’s more than one type of shock involved with starting this sport. One is cold shock which can occur with immersion, and best to avoid entirely. The other, for me, is just being shocked by the amount of considerations around gear, safety, preparation. Don’t have a clever name for this shock yet.
Any time information is neatly packaged and easy to digest it’s a good thing It’s a presentation that makes the beginner feel more empowered to go out and paddle after reading it.
When our club used to do trip leader training in the spring, there’s was always a point during simulated rescues where I’d see the “aha moment” on the faces of students, indicating that they “got it”. It was no longer just abstract lectures and anecdotes, it was real and they understood that. It was the most gratifying part of being an instructor, knowing that you helped them reach that point that would forever change how they approached paddling. It’s too bad that every paddler who intends to paddle big water doesn’t have the opportunity to get that level of mentorship and training, in our case, for free.
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