Seat time
I have done 6 hour nonstop paddles in the Lake off of Presque Isle. I obviously need to test my limits further.
I agree and well-said
– Last Updated: Aug-10-12 10:50 AM EST –
Sure the great lakes can get nasty. So get a marine radio. There are days upon days at a time when lake erie is a calm unmoving mass.
And yes - calm open water crossings will bore you to tears. We broke to swim in the middle of one; weird sensation swimming around and not seeing land. But it was miserably hot. I suspect that most people attracted to crossings get the "crossing" bug out of their system after a few.
go for it
"Bad things are not the worst thing that can happen to you.
Nothing is the worst thing that can happen to you!!"
Richard Bach
Ouch
Six hours in the seat of a kayak. That’s a painfully long time for me. Good job.
Lk Erie crossing
Sailors on the old sailing ships feared Lk Erie more than any of the other Great Lakes. (Shallow waters, fast changing weather, large waves with a short period, etc.)
Boring
Like a couple others have mentioned it gets quite monotonous. I’ve done a couple 70 mile races on the Missouri river which took about 11 hours of steady, hard paddling (with a very strong head wind). A river is at least interesting in that you have something to look at as well as competitors in the race, not to mention a current pushing you. But after 30 miles it starts to feel like real work. After 50 you just want to quit and for the last 20 miles you vow that you’re never going to do anything like this again, ever, no matter what.
Then after a couple days you start thinking that maybe with some more training it would be more comfortable and that you could knock an hour off your time.
Personally 2 hours of hard, steady, paddling is the most I can do (because of boredom) unless there’s some competition. But if I’m stopping here and there or doing some fishing or something to break it up then 15-20 miles is no problem. Do some long training sessions and see how it goes.
Alan
Book
– Last Updated: Aug-10-12 11:39 PM EST –
Next book on my reading list. Rolling the kayak is the next skill to learn; I have been using an open kayak: extremely difficult to empty and get back inside after sinking it intentionally, without going to shore.
Same here
I found 2 hrs is about the limit of monotonic crossing for me. Any longer than that, I’d be really bored.
Much more interesting to circumnavigate instead.
skills
About paddling in the dark: are there any kinds of legal requirements with lights etc?
Lots of old shipwrecks in Lake Erie
http://www.boatnerd.com/swayze/shipwreck/
We once found a small boiler in shallow water from an 1800s shipwreck while paddling. Interesting stuff.
I live 2 minutes from Lake Erie. It’s at the end of my street. Some days it looks like the ocean with big swells and breaking waves. Other days it is like a glassy milk pond (as my hubby says). It can change in 5 minutes. The Lake has its own micro-climate, so weather can be hard to predict on it (ask the local weather forecasters at Channels 2, 4, and 7 in Buffalo, NY).
Just out of interest …
– Last Updated: Aug-12-12 7:21 PM EST –
It's really hot here this weekend and the beach is packed, too many tourists for me to do my usual paddle/surfs ... so I've been checking out trip reports, videos, etc of Lake Erie storms. I remember someone who used to post fairly often posted a video of surfing in 5-6 ft storm waves on the lake that looked pretty impressive for being steep and confused. I was not able to find the video. I did find this slide show ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7zpkRN-KK0
Most of the videos I found of "Huge Waves" on lake Erie were exaggerated by a factor of 2 to 5 in reporting how high they were ... most were not that exciting . I do believe when the wind is howling it could be pretty nasty, but did not come up with any video of conditions that a sea kayak could not handle. Paddling in 40 -50 knot winds is not something you want to do though. There has been a lot of comment on short period, steep waves in shallow water causing a lot of boat accidents. With shorter periods the waves lack power, so while this might be very bad conditions for wide fishing boats with drunk inexperienced fisherman, it can be a playground for a kayak, depending on how chaotic the conditions and the experience of the paddler. The unanticipated violent storms are limited events, as storm fronts pass through, not where huge waves arise and winds persist for days. I would be interested in hearing from paddlers who have ridden out storms on the lake. I'd be interested to hear from paddlers who were actually surprised by a storm and learn if they followed NOAA forecasts before going out.
Jesse59 seems to be the only person who posted who actually has experience paddling on the lake. If anyone has a link to video of really nasty stuff, please post it up. Just for fun I've been putting together some video links of really nasty places to paddle where people do long crossings ... will post later.
Also found this interesting link on Shipwrecks in Lake Erie. Just from looking at the site for while on the info on each known wreck it looks like October -November is a bad time to be out on the Lake (if you didn't know that already). I was also surprised at how deep most of the wrecks lie, with all the comments about shallow water, but of course wrecks in shallow water can break apart and are not well preserved. Looks like being on a overloaded freighter in November is a bad idea.
http://www.eriewrecks.com/shipwrecks/shipwrecks.html
Interesting Link …
After looking at this for a bit I found the link I posted below shows the wrecks by maps, you can click on a wreck name on the map and it shows you what is known about the wreck.
Tough Weather = Tough Video
Getting decent video or pictures with constant
water on the lens from spray, waves, wind makes
it quite difficult to “film” rough conditions.
Having someone close enough in a “film kayak”
to shoot another kayaker’s action would
get pretty dicey I would imagine.
I am hoping…
that from the tenor of the posts so far you are getting the idea that paddling a crossing like this is a fairly major undertaking. If you were looking for a group to paddle with, you would probably quickly feel that they would be hesitant to take you along due to your lack of experience with smaller, less challenging crossings.
You will wish to check up with some experts who have done the crossing and you may wish to vist sites that will help you evaluate the difficulty of this excursion, such as the following:
http://tsunamirangers.com/articles/sea-conditions-kayaking-difficulty-rating-system/
I believe that using Eric’s scale here, you are in the 5 rating or above (depending upon your actual skill level). This is a pretty ambitious undertaking and I’d recommend taking a lot of trips on the lake to learn about what it is like to paddle there before making this attempt.
Here is one group of paddlers who crossed the lake:
http://caskaorg.typepad.com/caska/2010/07/lake-erie-island-2010-kayak-trip-report-1.html
Rick
Swimming instead of paddling
This might have warranted a new topic but it seems interesting in the context of deciding to paddle across 30 miles of open water as in this thread.
This seems to make paddling seem like cheating. 14-year-old swims solo across Lake Ontario:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/19/world/americas/canada-teen-swimmer/index.html
I don’t think they really mean “solo” like a kayaker would mean it. She did have some support but it didn’t sound like much.
Dave
I’ve paddled Lake Erie
in the western basin around the Bass Islands for the last four seasons. Seen some stuff come in very fast, very suddenly.
Erie is extremely shallow there, 35 ft deep the maximum. Comes up fast w. sharp triangular waves at very short periods. Didn’t get a pic, sorry - either having too much fun surfing or just getting the hell outa there!
Lake Erie Crossing
I crossed Lake Erie with a buddy a few years ago from Catawaba to Point Pelee via the Erie Islands. We made it from Catawba to the southern end of Pelee Island in 3 hrs. 20 Minutes, we stopped for a short rest on the northern end of Pelee in 6 hrs (the island is 9 miles long) and we ended up on the Canadian mainland in 9 hrs, 20 minutes. the last 12 miles were open water and we had a good push. If we didn’t have a tail wind, it probably would have been a 12 mile paddle.
Our paddle was about 32-33 miles, I think where you’re thinking about crossing is close to 80 miles. Good luck and hope you get a push, that will be a long trip. Be safe as multiple posters have replied.
Thanks for the shoutout Byron!
Emanoh