Don’t forget your Marine VHF, Compass, GPS, PLB and a radar reflector as you do not want to get run over!
What’s the longest trip you’ve taken? What’s the largest waves you’ve taken a trip in? What do you paddle now?
Have you read “Inside”, by Susan Marie Conrad? She paddled the inside passage to Alaska. Different water but similar problems and logistics.
Here is some video from the Water Tribe Everglades Challenge. Pacific waters are different. Much of this paddling can be in the ICW. But take a look at how many 13 ft boats are in this race.
Liz,
Don’t buy that 13’ kayak. I see others have advised you to get some instruction which is good advice. If you are a self learner then just start paddling, paddle everywhere; lakes, mellow river estuary and protected bays are a good place to start. Buy a fiber glass kayak no less than 16’-17’ long with strong water tight bulk heads and water proof hatches. Get a boat with a foot operated rudder. Get a light paddle, carbon fiber is worth the price. Look for used kayaks on Craigslist, I have bought many older boats for a fraction of the full retail. Lots of good boat reviews in this site to help narrow down the choices. Coastal paddling requires speed in order to make the distances between safe haul-outs. You should be able to paddle 25 to 30 miles in a loaded boat. Longer boats are faster boats, narrower boats are faster boats. There is perfect blend of length and width for each paddler, try lots of boats to find your sweet spot. Once you can do the miles you are ready for open coastal paddling. If you want to try your long distance skills do some day paddles at sea.
Thank you everyone, this is very helpful! I will look into those short trips and also the California Kayak friends. Very good advice. Next on my agenda is to read up, continue my research and try to find a good 16’-17’ kayak. Paddle-on Lads you said that fiber glass is the way to go, should I limit myself just to that?
@Adventureaddicttt7 said:
Thank you everyone, this is very helpful! I will look into those short trips and also the California Kayak friends. Very good advice. Next on my agenda is to read up, continue my research and try to find a good 16’-17’ kayak. Paddle-on Lads you said that fiber glass is the way to go, should I limit myself just to that?
Liz, I think you will learn a lot by reading through this site: http://www.paddlesafely.com/
You can start out with “equipment and lists,” and work your way through each topic.
Best wishes for your journey.
Expedition Kayak does not need to be fiberglass. Freya Hoffmeister has done many very long expeditions (circumnavigation of Austrailia for instance) in poly kayaks. You could find a suitable kayak used for under $1000 once you know what you are looking for, it is also possible that someone could loan you an expedition kayak or sponsor part of your trip. Read up on people who have similar things.
I tend to agree with the advice here. Get involved with some excursions (either outfitter or clubs) and do some shorter (2-3 day) camping paddles in challenging conditions. Professional outfitters are expensive, but they offer trips from the San Juan Islands (which is more like what you’d paddle going down the coast) all the way to Baja. Clubs won’t offer as much coverage. In N. Cal. (SF-Oregon), there are very few outfitters who paddle the area, but there may be some clubs for day trips. You will be surprised at how much there is to running even a small expedition.
I also agree that a 13’ boat just won’t cut it. Distances between safe harbor are large, so a lot of 8-10 hour days are not unexpected. Some places have capricious weather and you need to have the judgement and experience just to decide whether you can safely be on the water.
I don’t think anyone here is saying do not do this, but we all would like you to make sound decisions about the skills, gear, and judgement needed for an excursion like this. Generally, it takes over a year to plan and execute an ambitious trip such as this, so take your time and do it right. You will have a much safer amd more enjoyable excursion if you do.
Some recommendations: Contact authorities up and down the coast for advice on local paddling. Learn the best places and plan to hit those, knowing that on a given day, they may not be accessible and a backup landing location may be necessary. Submit a plan with the coast guard and local sheriff departments identifying where you are likely to be and when. They will probably come out and look for you, just to ensure your progress.
Good luck and plan well.
Rick
To give you some inspiration. Chris Duff’s book, On Celtic Tides, about circumnavigating Ireland. Got me hooked on kayaking.
https://g.co/kgs/sJZJtz
@SeaDart said:
Expedition Kayak does not need to be fiberglass. Freya Hoffmeister has done many very long expeditions (circumnavigation of Austrailia for instance) in poly kayaks.
I can’t find any reference to her paddling plastic boats on expeditions.
Freya used an Epic 18X kayak to go around Oz, which is a composite. And she did have to do repairs on boats as she went. Boat was also replaced half way through, but not so much due to damage as due to the custom boat she wanted not being ready when she started.
Before that, I am not sure what she used on her 2008 South Island of NZ lap. Can’t find details. But her 2007 lap of Iceland was in a NDK Explorer, which is composite.
Since Oz, her lap of South America was started with the Epic, then finished with a custom composite 18’ Point 65 boat.
Jon Turk paddles plastic.
Liz,
Yes I did specify fiberglass but many Poly kayaks are great too. Poly boats are generally heaver, the bulkheads are glued in to the boats and are prone to moving or leaking. The hulls get more easily roughed up and are less hydrodynamic over time. I like fiberglass or Kevlar for these reason; Easier to fix if severity damaged, tend to be lighter, stiffer thus faster, the boats that are built in fiberglass/kevlar tend to be the boats designed for serious touring and expedition paddling. Lighter is a big factor if you tend to paddle alone. Loading and unloading a boat from a car or up a long beach is easier with a lighter boat.
Tempted to answer Pamlico 140. More seriously, didn’t Jon Turk do some expeditions in HTP Prijons (and Renata Chlumska also used a Prijon, I think). I wonder, if you had lots and lots and lots of time, whether you could do the trip in a 14 ft P&H Hammer or a 15 ft Prijon Yukon?
There are quite a few inspirational stories about people who did long outdoor trips with little or no prior experience. The book and movie “Wild,” which describes Sheryl Strayed’s hike along the Pacific Crest Trail with no experience and untried equipment, is a good example of this kind of story. But there is a big difference between paddling the Mississippi River with no experience, and paddling the Pacific coast with no experience, namely that your chances of getting in serious trouble or killed are a lot higher when paddling along the Pacific coast.
I suggest that you spend a year or so learning the skills, accumulating the equipment, and developing the experience and judgment you need to do a long ocean kayak expedition. The skills include paddling a kayak, rolling a kayak, launching and landing a kayak in surf, using GPS, tide charts, and nautical maps, camping out of a kayak, and packing food for a multiday trip, and learning the range of conditions in which you can safely kayak. These skills are best learned by paddling with experienced sea kayakers. Buy a dry suit and all of the other paddling and camping gear you need to do multi-day kayak trips. Do a lot of day trips and a lot of 2-3 day trips. These trips will be fun, as well as educational. You don’t have to go on a thousand mile multi-month expedition to have fun.
You will probably own or have owned several different kayaks before you are ready to set off on a long kayak expedition. You’ll know when you are beginning to get ready to do a long kayak expedition when a friend calls to propose a several day kayak trip at the end of the week, and you can throw together all the gear and food you need for the trip in a couple of hours. You’ll know when you are beginning to get ready to do a long kayak expedition when a friend calls to propose a several day kayak trip at the end of the week, and after checking out the maps, weather predictions, and tide charts, you decide that the proposed trip sounds kind of sketchy, and you decline the offer. You’ll know when you are beginning to get ready to do a long kayak expedition when somebody makes a post on this forum asking about an appropriate kayak to use for multi-day camping trips, and you can respond with constructive suggestions based on the various kayaks you have used for camping. You’ll know that you are beginning to get ready to do a long kayak expedition when the weather prediction for the weekend is for rain, but you nevertheless go on a several-day kayak trip because you know that you can paddle and camp in comfort in the rain. You’ll know when you are beginning to get ready to do a long expedition down the Pacific coast when you start identifying sections of the coast which it would probably make sense to skip.
I look forward eventually to hearing about your expedition. But don’t be in a big hurry to head out. First assemble the equipment you need for the expedition, and develop the skills and judgment you need for the expedition. Which will itself be a fun process.
Sorry, Brain Fart, Peter is correct, Prijon poly boats have been used in many expeditions as mentioned by others here. I’ve paddled a Prijon Kodiak a lot in Baja, it’s a great expedition boat but may be too large to fit you.
Another good inspirational book by Chris Duff is “Southern Exposure” about paddling around the south island of New Zealand, this book inspired me to go to NZ and paddle on the coast there. An Amazing place.
Jon Turks book “In the Wake of the Joman” about sailing/paddling his proposed route for ancient immigrants to North America, will also give you a taste for coastal ocean paddling and what can go wrong.
The Northwest Kayak Angler’s Forum and the Northern California Kayak Angler’s forum are sources of information about places along the Pacific Coast where you can easily launch and land a kayak. In some areas there are a limited number of such spots, and they may involve a specific short section of a long beach which is protected by a point. And these spots may only be easy in a pretty limited range of weather and water conditions.
When talking with kayak anglers on these forums, keep in mind that kayakers on these forums have a big range of skill levels, from good fishermen with rudimentary kayaking skills who spend some time fishing in the ocean, to really expert kayak anglers who routinely launch through rough surf and fish for big fish many miles out in the ocean. Also keep in mind that most kayak anglers fish from pedal or paddle sit-on-top kayaks without thigh straps, so they aren’t very well set up to handle launches and landings through big surf. A kayaker with a solid roll who is paddling a sit-inside sea kayak can handle rougher surf than most kayak anglers are willing to tackle.
The Dreamcathers by Kruger hold the 2nd longest record of any paddle trip.
21, 000 miles from top of North America to bottom on Cade Horn. A 2 1/2 year trip.
Expensive tho
what’s the longest trip?
@PaddleDog52 said:
what’s the longest trip?
28,043 miles, 3-years, 7 months and 16 days----in the early 1980’s by Steve Landick and Verlen Kruger paddling individual boats and covering the major waterways of North America, Both Coast, first and only ascent of the entire Colorado river from sea to continental divide. 18,200 miles in USA; 7600 miles in Canada; 2200 miles in Mexico; 9,140 miles on three oceans; 6,950 miles of UPstream paddling; 560 miles of portages—approx 1,500 miles on foot as they were all double haul porages–the longest being 9 -days (66 miles, South Pas Wyoming)–other portages included 33-miles 4-days) of Chilkoot Pass, Yukon. 0.2 miles- 1-day Sockdolager Rapid in the Grand Canyon during ascent.)
Route photo link below.
Thanks for info