Friday, June 28, 2013
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Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Camping And Kayaking For The First Time
Camping and kayaking is the perfect way to spend a weekend in the outdoors, because it is peaceful and quiet and an awesome way to get away from it all but if you have never tried it, then you need to know what to expect.
Basically, your first experience will be one of the most romantic experiences of your life with paddling, camping, sleeping, and eating on the edge of the shore. There is nothing else like it in the world. There is nothing like paddling across a hidden lake that not too many people even get to see and then finding the right location where you will not run into another living soul to camp for the night. Due to the isolated nature of camping this way, there is one thing that you need to think of above all else, which is safety.
The odds are fairly high that you may not run into anybody else when you are on a kayaking trip, then you need to be prepared with the safety basics. You will need life jackets and make sure you wear them at any time you are in the water. It is amazing how tired you can become when trying to recover from an upset kayak and it can happen fairly easily. Kayaks are not the most stable craft in the water and many have been thrown into the water from them, which is due to their low sides, somewhat tippy nature, and the water.
You many need to and are required in most places to carry a bailing bucket to help empty your canoe of any water you may have taken on, and a throw rope for emergency rescues from shore or even other boats. Throw ropes come in a bag and are designed not to be an entanglement hazard before they are deployed. In the event of an emergency you simply grab the free end of the rope with one hand and throw the heavier bag to shore or to you are would be rescuers. When you are forced to use one of these ropes then you will appreciate them more, especially if you get tossed into some rapids and out of your kayak.
The key to keeping your kayak stable is to ensure that you pack all of you equipment with the heaviest stuff on the bottom and the lighter stuff on top. Many individuals will make an effort to use dry bags to keep all of my things in and even clip them to the gunwales of their kayaks or into storage compartments to prevent their belongings from going to the bottom of the lake or river in the event of an upset. Some people will use garbage bags on kayak trips, but that will only keep your things dry from splashing, because they are not very robust and tend to rip easily. This will eventually allow your stuff to get wet, not to mention they will not prevent your stuff from sinking if you flip.
You should always plan your route before leaving and it would not hurt to have a secondary route planned just in case, because you never know what mother nature will throw at you and you may be forced to take a different route than what you had originally planned. The important thing is to let someone know what your intentions are and how long you will think you will be kayaking and camping. It is not something that you will likely need, but if you did need the help it is pretty reassuring to know that someone is expecting you back and they know where to send help if by some very small chance you do not return when you say you will.
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