Water thrills and chills north & south of the border

By Jack Kintner

Sea kayak instructor Marty Perry shoved off from the beach and glided out to meet his class of eight paddlers, all of whom were new to kayaking. Before saying anything to the group he rolled over and disappeared under the calm waters of Deep Cove, the shiny wet bottom of his bright yellow kayak motionless for an instant before he rolled right back up again with a deft swish of his touring paddle. “That feels better!” he said, dripping like an Italian fountain, “it’s kinda hot today.”

If there were ever an ideal craft for intimately exploring the rich and diverse environment found in the many varieties of recreational water in the northwest, it’s the kayak. But at $1,000 and up for even a modest boat the entry price can be steep.

One solution to this can be found in Deep Cove in North Vancouver, where the Deep Cove Canoe and Kayak Center runs an almost endless series of classes through the spring, summer and fall out of two different liveries operating on Burrard Inlet and the adjacent Indian Arm. Once Perry finishes his three hour class, his students will be signed off to rent all the equipment they need, including the boat, paddle, safety gear, skirt and personal flotation device (PFD) for kayaking in the area.

In Bellingham the same service is provided by the Bellingham Bay Community Boating Center, a non-profit co-op that offers classes in rowing and sailing as well as in kayaking. It relies largely on volunteers to keep costs low but is a beehive of activity when good weather hits the waterfront at its Fairhaven location. The center also provides secure storage for private boats.

Down the inlet toward the Ironworkers’ Memorial Bridge at the mouth of the Seymour River, Don Jamieson runs his Sea to Sky Kayaking School that for 30 years has taught whitewater kayakers to handle their boats and their emergency maneuvers, especially the venerable Eskimo roll, in new and more effective ways. With the Seymour, Lynn Creek and the Capilano River all within minutes of his shop Jamieson has a variety of learning and practice environments to choose from. His students range from rank beginners to Olympic competitors.

Meanwhile, Perry’s class has been practicing their sea kayak paddling stroke by touching their paddle blades to the front decks of their boats between each stroke. “I want you to hear your PFD (personal flotation device) swish as you twist back and forth as you paddle. Your wrists and arms will give out long before your trunk will, so for power use your big, central muscles.”

Perry, a Montreal native, moves through the water like some giant yellow otter in a boat that has no rudder, making it easier to roll, which he does every so often to cool off. Though not required for sea kayaking, mastering the roll is kayaking’s grail, and is essential for operating in white water beyond class II rapids.

Perry, a whitewater kayaker in Quebec for some years before venturing out to B.C., is able to pop up like a duck in a shooting gallery again and again.

When the class has completed all their maneuvers and is waiting in turn for each student to see how many strokes it takes to turn the boats in a circle within their own length, one student falls over and slips out of his kayak.

“This will give us a chance to see a ‘T’ rescue,” Perry says as he proceeds to slide the student’s kayak over his own to drain most of the water out of it. “It’s the safest way for beginners to rescue someone, and is a good illustration of why you should not be going out alone without a fair amount of experience and good instruction in self-rescue techniques.”

Once the boat is drained, Perry holds it while the student crawls on top of the bow, then wriggles and slides back to the cockpit and plops in, his boat held all the while as rigidly against Perry can manage against his own boat. The whole operation takes less than a minute, and with a few strokes of the bilge pump the student’s on his way.

The question is why?

Why do people go out in such small boats? A couple of recent experiences may show why.

Park ranger Ben VanBuskirk, who’s in charge of Lighthouse Park in Point Roberts, Washington, was out paddling on Georgia Strait near the Point Roberts shoreline at dusk a few years ago with a friend who had a kayak rental business in the park. They stopped to rest and for stability rafted together with their boats side-by-side and their paddles across their cockpits. Soon they saw a large Killer Whale bull with an unusual ruffled trailing edge on his seven-foot dorsal fin headed their way.

They sat motionless as the 25-foot long creature rose to breathe just ten feet in front of them and then descended to pass underneath their boats, his black and white markings clearly visible just below them, his fin just inches from tickling their hulls.

“That was the bull we call Ruffles,” Ben said to his paddling partner, who had held onto his forearm so tightly she drew blood. “He’s pretty big, all right. Don’t worry about the arm. I understand.”

Recreational water-borne travel stems from ancient roots, of course, but research has provided some surprises over the years. The word Kayak is native and is also Turkish, as the oldest known framework boats with skin coverings and the Turkish people themselves both come from the extreme north-east corner of Asia.

One thing historians point out about ancient people who migrated by water, as opposed to land, is that their watercraft had to be able to travel hundreds if not thousands of miles without stopping while providing a measure of safety and security. Polynesians did this with Kon-Tiki style rafts, while more northern people achieved this with large open boats made with animal skins called umiaks and, later, with the ancestors of contemporary ocean-going sea kayaks.

The two basic kinds of recreational kayaking are as different as downhill and cross-country skiing, using fundamentally different kinds of hulls in very different ways, attracting people of different interests.

Though there are areas of convergence, such as when a touring boat is paddled in a large river or a sit-on-top is used to surf ocean waves, the best way to sort out the intricacies is to become involved with a group such as the touring oriented Whatcom Association of Kayak Enthusiasts (WAKE) or take a course such as those available from Don Jamieson’s whitewater oriented Sea to Sky Kayaking School in North Vancouver, B.C.