Hey guys! I’m new here and fairly new to kayaking. It’s only been about a year and my dog always joins me! We have a field and stream kayak and normally stick to calm rivers and lakes. I’m not crazy about how big it is, I feel like it’s size puts a lot of stress on parts of my body it shouldn’t, aswell as it is SLOW. I do like it however because it is so sturdy for my pup who’s about 50lbs and medium sized. She doesn’t move around a bunch to begin with but I never fear tipping in it with her. We want to venture into sea kayaking for the purpose of some long camping trips. The first trip we have planned is around the San Juan islands this coming summer. The thing is we need to find a kayak that suits a journey like that and I do not feel like the field and stream would. I’m looking for something faster, can hold both our weight plus atleast a weeks worth of camping gear, and a kayak that can comfortably fit us both inside because she will not sit on top, also something under $1200! If anyone has any advice about anything I’ve just mentioned please share with me! Thanks!
Don’t do it!
Don’t do what exactly? It’s very common for people to kayak those islands and a lot of people kayak with their pets soooo?
Is it you or your dog that wants to go sea kayaking? You could do it but not with a sea kayak. Not well anyway nor safely.
My suggestion will be well above your $1200 mark but something like a Kruger Sea Wind would be sea worthy and spacious enough.
Go sea kayaking some on your own first and then re-evaluate.
See you on the water,
Marshall
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Well my dog enjoys kayaking with me now. She loves the water and spent three years traveling around the world with me and pretty adaptable to everything. I obviously wouldn’t just go on three week trip without training. But thank you for not coughing up any advice
@Mtcpaddler said:
Well my dog enjoys kayaking with me now. She loves the water and spent three years traveling around the world with me and pretty adaptable to everything. I obviously wouldn’t just go on three week trip without training. But thank you for not coughing up any advice
Here’s a link to a site which will give you some information about sea kayaks and other types. It also contains plenty of worthwhile reading in other sections: http://www.paddlesafely.com/kayaks/
Marshall’s advice about getting into an actual sea kayak and paddling it was excellent. He’s an ACA Certified L4 kayak instructor.
I think you’ll discover that there’s not much room inside the cockpit of a 16-17 foot sea kayak that’s 20 to 24" wide for anything but your feet. Keep in mind that you’ll need to wear a sprayskirt to keep water out of the cockpit. Your 50# dog is not going to fit inside that cockpit. Maybe a tandem sea kayak would work, but that presents other issues.
You should also pick up a copy of a book called “Deep Trouble.” There’s a couple of incidents reported in the book that took place around the San Juan Islands. Amazon carries it: https://tinyurl.com/y8zf66x2 Makes for good off season reading and you learn a lot. At least I did. There’s even a follow up: “More Deep Trouble” that’s worth reading.
You and your dog both wear life jackets when you’re on the water, right?
I paddled a sea kayak for decades with very small dogs. They would sit on the skirt or on a towel in my lap. I would only take them on calm days where flipping was not an issue and never on open ocean trips because the sea can change very fast at times.
My point is its doable but you’ve gotta be smart about. It. With the money you have budgeted you can get a really high-end used kayak and if it doesn’t work out you can sell it and get your money back.
At 50 pounds for the dog there just isn’t any sea kayak that I have ever seen. I have a friend who has a sea kayak but goes with a much smaller dog (maybe 15 pounds) which is small enough to go under the deck while they paddle. Plus its a big sea kayak at 18’4" foot long . That coast around 3500 new. Maybe look into some kind of canoe that has deck covers to keep water out. Sea kayaks are made to fit just the paddler snugly around them to have good contact with the boat. I see canoes all the time with dogs on board. Much better idea. Now there are some recreational type kayak like a Wilderness Systems Pungo which have HUGE cockpits were a dog may fit. Not a sea kayak by any means though.
Without more info (and likely even with more info), I hate to say it, but I am with Shiraz627 - paddling around the San Juans in a sea kayak with your dog is a risk.
The San Juans may not be ocean, so not exposed to oceans well, but it is a sea. The water is very cold, the water moves like a river (with currents up above 2 knots at times - most kayakers average about 3 knots), and you can get winds and waves just like a sea. The areas has claimed many paddlers who underestimated the skills and gear required. If you read Sea Kayaker’s Deep Trouble or More Deep Trouble books, it seems like about half of the accidents they reported were in the San Juans (of course, Sea Kayaker Magazine being based in Seattle may have had some part in that).
The info we would need - which Field and Stream boat are you using now? If it is one of the longer (like 12 feet or longer) sit on top kayaks, the boat actually may be ok. If it is a sit inside, all of the ones they have listed online would not be appropriate for the San Juans (with or without a dog). These boats are not made for open water, and should you flip over in deep water, it is very unlikely you could get back in and drain the boat.
Sea kayaks are not made for carrying a medium sized dog. You could put pup on your lap, but that would get in the way of your paddling and prevent you from wearing a spray skirt (which helps with sea worthiness and warmth). You could perhaps get a double sea kayak and put the dog in the front, but these boats are beasts to transport and would be hard to self-rescue in. If you did get a sea kayak, make sure it has bulkheads in front and back (the sealed in area is flotation - an important safety feature) and deck lines.
Paddling in the San Juans is cold water. The highest average water temperature at Friday Harbor all year is 53F (from https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/all_meanT.html). That is very dangerous water temperatures should you end up swimming. You should be wearing a wet suit or dry suit for all paddling there.
If you really insist on paddling with your dog in that area, I would use a sit on top kayak. Perhaps even a double sized one. And get a wet suit and paddle jacket for you to wear.
I would not expose my dog to that risk. Plenty of places to paddle with a dog besides that. I’d take my dog in shelter water with a jacket near shore. If something happen he could swim to shore easily.
You have a difficult set of requirements to fill. If I read your post correctly, you plan to carry a 50 lb dog, yourself (I’ll assume 200 lbs based on no information - could be much less or more), and a week’s worth of gear and food for the two of you in a challenging environment and have an upper limit of $1200 for the vessel need to carry the above. A concern with a dog in conditions like you may find there is that the dog may not want to be sealed inside of the kayak but if the cockpit or a hatch is open the craft is subject to flooding in the seas you may find there. I recall that someone (Eddyline?) made a touring sit on top although both you & the dog would need thermal protection (wet suit). Another option might be a kayak with a large cockpit or a double.
Search Amazon for ‘Deep trouble’ and ‘Deep Trouble 2’. many of the events in those books occured around the San Juans.
What you are talking about doing is, as above, not a practical plan. But also extremely dangerous for your dog.
You have the ability to make a choice that is unwise. Your dog doesn’t have the same options to balance everything - they assume you have managed that. I start with it being extremely unkind to the dog to put them at that risk. You can try out a proper sea kayak and find out how you do with it, but without the pup.
I have a friend, a watertribe veteran, that used to paddle a 20ft tandem sea kayak solo. In that boat he was a paddling machine. He’d put on the miles in any condition for hours. You could certainly put the dog in the front and paddle away. Of course you’d probably have to be able to do a similar training program as my friend and be in good condition. He’d pump the rowing machine “kayak” style for about an hour in the gym. Waves were a problem though. He’d have to do the extra push over the crest and the boat pounded a lot in big seas. I’m having trouble visualizing the dog in the front cockpit wearing a skirt.
I don’t know the San Juans. I see plenty of outfitter pictures of people doing those islands without prior experience. They are wearing skirts though. You’d have to pick your weather I’m sure they do.
I wouldn’t do expedition sea kayaking with my dog. He prefers the RV anyway.
PS…Riker, the retriever, travels well and likes the canoe. After about an hour he gets up, repositions and plops down. He usually lands his wight on one side or the other. Instant edging…
This was all really helpful. I haven’t read anything about negative incidents around the san Juan’s, so I’m definitely going to look into that. Training and practice I assumed were a must. I’m 120lbs soaking wet so I feel like I have some work to do before I’m prepared to get into the ocean and paddle. As for the concern for my dog not having a choice. I also appreciate and understand why people might opt to leave there pets at home. Although it would be a greater stress for my dog to be separated from me for weeks on end than to train with me to do a trip like this. She has not been separated from me not even for a day in five years and as I said she’s traveled all over the world with me in extreme conditions. She’s adaptable and an eager learner since she’s a working breed. I don’t doubt that if given a safe situation she will cooperate and even enjoy herself. I am leaning towards the idea of a double and having her sit in the front but I do fear not being able to have control if we flip. A sit on top doesn’t feel like the right choice for the kind of trips I want to do aswell and I don’t think we want that much exposure. But yeah. I’m going to pick up those reads for sure. Maybe take my dog to sit in some kayaks and see what’s comfortable. And start working out a bit for preparation! Thanks for all this advice!!
A kayaking outfitter and guide that I used to paddle with had a female Keeshond who was probably about 40 pounds. She always accompanied him on his outings. He usually used a full size 17’ or 18’ sit-inside plastic or fiberglass sea kayak.
What he did to accommodate the dog was to remove the rear hatch cover, fill the rear hatch with inflated flotation bags in front of and behind the hatch opening, then he had a “sea sock” (picture a nylon bucket) that he had made to fit inside the remaining mid-space of the hatch opening. I seem to remember that it was vinyl coated nylon canvas (cordura) with a tunnel with bungee cord in it that fit over the hatch molding like a spray skirt does on a kayak cockpit. I presume he had sealed the seams against leakage. I do recall on at least one trip that he pulled a circle of closed cell foam (Ensolite or a piece of yoga pad) out of the bottom of it during a rest stop so that must have been for padding and isulation for the dog. Keisha (the dog) would mostly sit happily in her little “pod” while we were paddling. Her owner also kept a piece of foam mat under his front deck lines and on calm days Keisha would sometimes lay on that.
I have a photo of them somewhere. If I find it I will post it.
Thanks so much! I didn’t even think about the possibility of customizing things! That is actually a brilliant idea!
Apparently it has been done before. This fellow builds his own kayaks from kits from Pygmy and customized one so that BOTH his dogs could ride in the hatches. He added bulkheads on either side of each hatch to keep the hull from flooding and he describes planning to make the same “sea sock” type of insert that I described to fill in the hatch openings.
Hi Willowleaf. If I am getting this correctly, what the guy you are talking about did was to fill up the space in which the dog might otherwise get caught in a capsize. So the dog would be swimming, and in areas with the level of risk of the San Juans, this is a sobering thought. But at least not caught inside the boat. And hopefully in an area of risk with a doggie PFD on.
I would still be concerned about the dog being separated from the boat and paddler with the kinds of currents you can hit in that area. Like getting separated far enough that it would be impossible to retrieve. But the idea is interesting given a paddler with the corrrect skills. That said, those are pretty good skills.
As to the dog having separation issues - this is something that owners can sometimes get in front of with the right training and practice.
**Just saying the following that I see as a problem take no offense please.
**
You have been sea kayaking 1 year in a Field and Stream rec kayak
You are now going into the ocean.
You’re 120 pounds soaking wet but taking a 50 lb. live load with you in the ocean.
You’re limited to $1200 but have been traveling the world.
"I do fear not being able to have control if we flip"
"I don’t think we want that much exposure". In a SOT. What will be your exposure be when you and your dog are in the water?
People who can’t self rescue should not be offshore period. Can you rescue your dog that you love? Think about it now not when you have to floating.
"Maybe take my dog to sit in some kayaks and see what’s comfortable." Wheres that in the ocean or at a dealers showroom? How long will he sit in it?
Your skill levels are?
Your skill levels will be compromised how much with a 50 lb. dog?
How much time are you willing practice recovery with your dog in the condition that would likely leave you both out of the boat?
**“Although it would be a greater stress for my dog to be separated from me for weeks on end than to train with me to do a trip like this. She has not been separated from me not even for a day in five years and as I said she’s traveled all over the world with me in extreme conditions. She’s adaptable and an eager learner since she’s a working breed. I don’t doubt that if given a safe situation she will cooperate and even enjoy herself.”
**
How do you travel the world with a dog I always have heard there are many restriction when taking dogs to other countries?
Think of the stress on you both when you can’t get back in the boat and are drifting apart.
You dog may want to cooperate with you but be unable to in a capsize.
I would personally died before letting something happen to my dog. That alone can make a situation bad and cloud my judgement.
People can make choices and so be it. Dogs can’t their owner makes the choice for them. I wrote the above for your dog. Your dog is better at home with anxiety than shark bait.