An exciting and challenging kayak trick in an ocean rock garden is to paddle over a pour-over. In river running, a pour-over is a river current that flows over a rocky ledge into a hole below. In ocean adventure kayaking, a pour-over is a flat rock or a reef which a wave surges over into […]
Sea Kayaking Skills
Take a Sea Kayaking Class
Mentoring is the best way to teach a newbie how to sea kayak. But many beginners and even advanced paddlers don’t have the luxury of a knight to patiently teach them all they know about sea kayaking. Or even if you have a mentor, you may still wish to learn something your mentor doesn’t know. […]
Surf Kayaking Etiquette
by Eric Soares and John Lull Ever been kayak surfing backwards and get speared in the kidney by the bow of another boater who didn’t even know you were there? Ever have a bloke broach down a big wave and land hull first on your head? These calamities have happened to us. We don’t want […]
Exiting the Surf Zone
How to kayak from outside the breakers to the beach by Eric Soares and John Lull “Ah thought Ah’s goin’ t’ DIEEEE!” Georgia girl Bonnie Brill loves to tell the tale of how she was hit by a sucker wave at Maverick’s in Half Moon Bay, was turned over, under, sideways and down, dragged across […]
Entering the Surf Zone
How to kayak from the beach to outside the breakers Sea kayaking adventurer Valerie Fons once said, “My greatest fear was waking up in the morning and having to kayak through a surfzone.” She had faced a bear in her tent and an anaconda next to her boat on her journeys; how could she fear […]
Tsunami Rangers’ Rock Garden Class in August
Paddling through surf zones and rock gardens is the frontier of sea kayaking and something you can do right now. Why fret about surf zones and avoid rock gardens like the plague? If you are ready to improve your kayaking skills and take the plunge into the next dimension of kayaking, then I have good […]
Camo Your Camp
How Sea Kayakers Can Blend in at the Beach Dayglo orange is the color to wear when camping at 14,000 feet on Mt. McKinley. You want to be highly visible against the snow should you need rescue. And it’s legal to camp in the mountains, so there is no problem with bright colors. But on […]
Scouting the Sea
A few months ago I promised to run a column on scouting. So here it is. Scouting is one of the most crucial sea kayaking activities; and ironically, it is often done perfunctorily or not at all. For logical convenience, let’s place scouting into three phases, starting with the most distant and ending with on-water […]
Between a Rock and a Hard Wave
HOW TO SURVIVE A CRASH IN WAVES AND ROCKS WHILE KAYAKING IN AN OCEAN ROCK GARDEN Why do most sea kayakers stay away from waves and rocks? They don’t want to die! Any paddler with a lick of sense dreads the scenario of getting smashed head first into a rock by a breaker. Today, let’s […]
Golden Gate Sea Kayaking Symposium 2011
At this time next week I’ll be setting up to speak at the GGSKS on the shores of San Francisco Bay. I’ll be giving a multimedia show titled Tsunami Rangers Retrospective. It will cover 25 years of our adventures exploring the microcosms of surf zones, ocean rock gardens, and sea caves. There should be thrills, […]
Four Ways to Learn Sea Kayaking
I learned how to sea kayak from a book. Written by Derek Hutchinson, it was called SEA CANOEING. From that book I learned how to roll, how to outfit a sea kayak, how to surf and seal land, and how to stay safe on the water. But that was not the only way I learned […]
Swimmer First, Kayaker Second?
Exactly 25 years ago I wrote my first kayaking article called “Survival Swimming”, which was published in SEA KAYAKER Magazine. I thank editors Bea and John Dowd for having faith in me to write an article worthy of their magazine. I’ve experienced a lot and learned some things since then. The other day I mused, […]
Greenland-style Rolling with Helen Wilson
(This week’s blog is written by Steve King, Tsunami Ranger lieutenant) As all sea kayakers know, a good roll and/or self rescue technique is core skill #1 for safe and fun adventure kayaking. Last weekend I had the good fortune to be taught the versatile and body friendly Greenland style roll by a wonderful and […]