Baja Day 2, Feb 14

Happy Valentine's Day. I received a nice card this morning from my sweetie. At least this morning didn't start too early. Most everyone was up, packed and ready to load the kayaks by about 8:15ish. We enjoyed a nice breakfast of yogurt and granola.

Loading the boats is like a Tetris puzzle. Each piece needs to fit in a certain spot and be packed down as tight as possible in order for the rest of the items to fit into their space. I had the front of the tandem kayak to load. I loaded in a small dry bag with the medical kit and Pelican dry case filling in the small spaces, then I had clothing next, pressed to fit the space. The camping gear (down mat, silk liner) went in next to the bulkhead, with the sleeping bag filling in the rest with a duffle on top. After we loaded the boats, we paddled south to the lagoon. It was just as picturesque and quiet as it looked the night before from our vantage point on the headwater. We saw some egrets, herons, and pelicans. The tide was just right (high enough) to allow us to get in and out without a portage.

Back out on the Sea of Cortez, we turned back to the north and paddled out towards the three islands we had seen from the headwater, Isla Gallina (hen, the smallest and closest), Isla Gallo (rooster, the middle island), and Isla Ballena (whale, the furthest north and whale shaped). By the time we got to camp, we had passed the last island, and had paddled about 6 miles. As expected (from the weather report), the wind picked up in the early afternoon. We made it to our next campsite but the wind was crazy to paddle against.

Tonight's campsite is very small. We are all perched on a small shelf just above the tide line which is a very small area. With the tide coming in, it is quickly becoming even smaller. We have been told we will be okay but it looks tight. We did a little snorkeling after setting up camp. A small school of fish swam just ahead of us before darting off into the depths. The hike up to the top was quite a climb but worth the views. We watched the sunset then made our way back down to enjoy supper. We had some very good star gazing with clear skies and very little light pollution.

Baja Day 1, Feb 13

Today was a long day. We ended up getting in quite late last night by bus from Cabo to La Paz then we found out we had over-packed and had to pare down our pile of gear. We were then up early to repack and finalize the gear. Having been told to expect much cooler weather we packed dry pants and spray tops. We also had limited space in which to pack things. Some of the things we removed where the heavier layers such as my down jacket and I had an extra pair of water shoes I left for this leg of the trip. There also wasn't any room or need for my larger day pack so that plus some food and our street clothes were repacked.

We loaded all our gear up into the truck and went down to the outfitter to finalize sleeping bags and wet suits as needed. We also had to load up several kayaks. We are using two tandems, and three singles. The singles are from Wilderness Systems and the tandems are Amaruk's A short walk took us down to the beach were we loaded up the small skiff that was to take us over to the islands. The guides already had their kayaks over on the islands so we only had to transport three kayaks. Our group is 5 people plus 2 guides, including professional photographer Daniel Fox. The boat ride over was a bit rough but otherwise pretty and scenic. We saw a couple of whales on the boat ride over. We set up camp and enjoyed a nice lunch before splitting up.

This leg of the trip was taking place up and around Isla Espirito Santo with a circumnavigation of Isla la Partida. Both islands were acquired through the Mexican government by the Nature Conservancy to protect this biosphere. On this leg of the trip we are to paddle, hike and snorkel around for 5 days. Since this is a delicate desert biosphere, we must reduce our impact. The ocean will be our bide and a bucket our toilet. Urinating is allowed only in the surf zone and solid waste is disposed of further out in the deeper waters. All trash is carried out. Because of the scarcity of water, water is for drinking and cooking only. So the ocean will also be our bathtub as needed. There are very few wells on the islands so water is a previous commodity on our trip.

We broke up into a couple of smaller groups with one person resting at camp. Several people went snorkeling while the rest of us enjoyed a 2+ hour paddle to the south. We passed a nice enclosed lagoon with mangroves. With the tide low, it is hard to gain entry into the lagoon so we continued on to the next point. Low tide had exposed some red crabs on the rocks.

Back at camp after the paddle, we rested up before hiking to the top of the headwater to get a view of the lagoon and to watch the sunset. The lagoon had clear turquoise waters surrounded by vibrant green mangroves. We hiked down in the gathering darkness and enjoyed a nice but later supper. The skies were cloudy that night so not much start gazing was done. We had a new moon recently so not even the moon was visible. We had a little rain sprinkle down on us just after laying down to sleep so there was a flurry of activity as everyone jumped up to close up the tents, then we were down for the night, enjoying the silent calm.

This trip was made possible by both Aquapac and Alaska Mountain Guides. I am grateful to Aquapac for this opportunity and Alaska Mountain Guides for a wonderful experience. Stay tuned for more posts on this trip.

Planning for Baja

Last year in July I won a drawing for a trip for two to Baja to kayak with the whales for 6 days. I was totally excited about this because I had heard very good things about kayaking in Baja at a festival I had gone to. So now it was my turn to live the adventure and I am totally psyched. I put off the dates until this year in the hopes of using the trip as a mid-winter get away. Which means that my travel dates are fast approaching and it is now time to prepare in earnest.

Having had time to think about the time off and the scope of the trip, KayakerBoy and myself decided to upgrade to the 10 day trip to get more out of the adventure and the time off. This does require a little more planning to make sure we have the right gear and enough of it. So far from what I have read, the day time temperatures will be warm, but the evening temperatures will be colder. It was recommended to bring a 20 F sleeping bag. It is entirely possible to go swimming during the day or enjoy a nice sunny hike, while at night wearing fleece and wind shells will probably be required. Especially for me since I get cold easily.

The kayaking trip will be taking place on the ocean with beach side camping. While some gear will be provided, for the most part, we will have to provide our own sleeping bags, clothing, and paddling gear. A ground sheet is also highly recommended to keep the sand off the gear. Somehow I doubt that will be possible as sand has the uncanny ability to get everywhere no matter how careful I am. Case in point, I dumped out a ton of sand from my duffel, I think the only stuff in there was from pool sessions or stuff I had cleaned up from the Assateague trip. Oh well.

As it stands, I have semi dry pants (which might be over kill), a spray jacket, neoprene top, sun top and woolen layers for layering underneath. I will have to find some hiking pants and track down a swim suit of some sort as well as figure out what sleeping bag to bring. KayakerBoy has rain pants, and a spray jacket as well as polypro layers and hiking gear. I think we will both bring our Exped Down mat simply because the Neo Air is very delicate and we would rather not pop an expensive mattress because of beach sand. Plus the kayaks should be able to handle the extra weight. Best to save the ultralight items for backpacking where the weight savings is better appreciated.

I'll be posting a bit more detail on how we are packing and planning for this trip in a later post. Especially once we manage to hammer down what it is we really need. Stay tuned for that and a post trip summary of what worked, what didn't and what we did.

New Year Update

I haven't had much of a chance to post lately. This has had a lot to due with two moves in two months, but also from the lack of time to kayak recently. I moved out to Utah and with the onset of winter and lack of paddling partners (plus not knowing the area), has lead to a lack of paddling. I hope that once the weather starts warming up that I will again be able to get out and start kayaking again. I had hopped to kayak further into the season this year having finally acquired dry pants, but alas the move put an end to that. I have been able to get in the occasional pool session and there is a wave pool in the area that I am hoping to hit at some point soon.

I wish everyone a happy new year and hope the new year brings new challenges to keep the paddling fun and exciting. I am looking forward to going to Baja and enjoying some whale watching next month. I will definitely be posted about that trip and how it went. So stay tuned for that adventure.

ACA L4 Certification: Day 5

Today was the last day of the certification. Pretty much at this point we had demonstrated our teaching abilities and so we now had to demonstrate we could perform in the conditions. We didn't do much teaching today, in fact, it felt more like we just performed a list of tasks in various conditions. We played in the current as we were leaving the sheltered inlet then we were out on the ocean. Today was not nearly as rough or big as yesterday but we still had enough of a swell coming in creating some surfing conditions along the sea wall.

With the sea wall giving us a hard challenge to avoid, we did some group management while doing surf landings and launching. We also had to catch a wave in and surf it. I failed horribly the first time as I thought I was supposed to surf it sideways. I did eventually catch a wave in a nice surf, but I was rather timid about it. We then did some more 360 degree turns in the surf zone. I thought I had some trouble doing this as about halfway through the turn the surf turned me back to the starting position. So I started over not even realizing it had turned me in the direction I wanted to travel, so I did two 360 degree turns in a row. Everyone thought I was showing off, I wasn't. It was scary enough doing one turn.

We ended up portaging our kayaks back to the inlet side due to the outrushing current being so strong. Once back on the inlet side, we went back to the eddy and did some towing into the current. The fun part of this was we had to tow someone out into the current and once they hit the current, the tow-er had to capsize, release the tow and roll back up. I decided my roll wasn't confident enough so I did the extended paddle roll guaranteeing that I came back up. I had never done one before but it was nice. I have seen people using them as crutches to avoiding learning a real roll, but since I was having trouble I decided to use it. I also watched one of the guys on this event use the roll and break his paddle, I definitely didn't want to break my paddle.

After all this, we congregated on the beach and decided to get our feedback as a group. The person receiving the feedback stood up on a cinder block and everyone said whether they were at an L4 level or not. Everyone who was there to re-certify at the L4 level got their level. A few people who were at the L3 and wanted the L4 got their L4 level. Then there were 3 of us who had no level to begin with. Of the three of us, the first guy received an L2 with distinction. In a way I was glad to see him only get the L2 as he had some problems with teaching and performing certain strokes. The other guy received an L3 with a continuation for the L4, so with a little work, he should be able to get his L4 no problem. I received my L3 with distinction and with some work should have no problems receiving my L4. I really just need to get out in big conditions a few more times to get comfortable with them. I think I also need a boat I can control better so I will feel more comfortable.

All in all it was a great event and I feel I learned a lot from it. Someone said they tend to learn more from the certification events then they do from classes. I can see why. These are pretty intense ways to learn something and generally it is trial by fire. It was safe but definitely a learning curve.

ACA L4 Certification: Day 4

Day four of five sees us gathering up at a public launch point near Assateague Island in Ocean City. I wasn't really sure what to expect and we started off the day with a little quiz. Of course I had written down the tides several days ago in pre-planning then forgot to recheck the numbers. Missed that question. I did know this was a full moon having camped out under the spot light of its glow. The launch point was relatively calm being part of the enclosed harbor. He paddled out a little ways and found a nice little area off Assateague for some on land talks. We hear about tides and how they are formed as well as an idea of what we would expect today. This talk was a very scaled down version of the one from the tides and currents class I had taken while in Maine. We walked over to the ocean side of the island to check out the surf and conditions, they were looking gnarlier then I had ever been out in. We did a warm up and stretching before hopping back in our boats.

Teaching Stokes
We broke up into two groups to teach the strokes. This worked out well for two reasons, first being that we were actually a large group today with a total of 13 people, 11 of which were instructor candidates. The second reason was to prevent bias. While I had paddled with Tom before I had never paddled with Mitch before. So he could better evaluate my skills then someone who has seen me doing better and worse. The certification only represents what you show on the certification day. I was given the task of teaching the sculling draw as the current was pushing us up against a rocky sea wall. Then as we were heading back I was given the task to teach the hanging draw. I do find that I need to do turn more when doing a full sweep to prevent getting my hand behind my shoulder.

Working with Current
It seems strange to work with current in a sea kayak, even though I know it is possible to deal with current, I have only had to deal with it in either a sluggish form, or in my whitewater boat. Today we actually had currents and eddies that were easily visible and workable. We first worked on peeling in and out of the eddy into the current. The same principle applies in the sea kayak as the white water boat, lean away from the current when peeling. We also worked on ferrying across the current and paddling up against the current. We then worked our way around the inlet moving from eddy to eddy. On the other side of the inlet we found some standing waves forming and played in them. We worked on surfing and paddling backwards. I think that paddling backwards is the bane of my sea kayaking. I can fight the boat into a semblance of control when paddling forward but because I don't sink the boat enough, I have less control when going backwards. I did manage to brute force the kayak into control but it wasn't pleasant. We then moved out across the channel and set up for lunch at the small beach.

Working with waves
With the current work out of the way we then turned our sights to the ocean. From the ocean we had about 6-8 foot ocean swells combined with the shoals and beach to give 4-6 foot waves. I had never been out in such conditions before. We paddled out to the shoals and tried to cross them. I ended up being window shaded by a particularly large wave but manage to roll back up, thankfully. Of our group, one person needed a rescue, one person did a re-entry & roll, and the last guy tried the re-entry & roll, then a cowboy entry and finally got back in unaided with a paddle float re-entry. We regrouped and left the weaker person behind, then crossed the shoals. I think this was just to see what we could do as we didn't do much except turn around and surf our way back to the guy we had left. Back in closer to shore, we worked on a checklist of items, we rolled in surf, turned our boats in circles, and did re-entries and rescues. It was a very long and extremely tiring day.

Swells
While waves are a challenge to paddle in because they can break over you and roll you, tossing you around. ocean swells are just plain tiring. The swells we encountered were quite large and were moving through the rocky sea wall, not around it. We made our way back to the inlet opening and held position while waiting for a break in the boat traffic to head back in. Paddling with the swells is tiring as it really feels like paddling up hills then kind of sliding down hill. The down hill slide being not nearly as long as the up hill slog. We held position at the mouth of the inlet when one person went over and had to bail from the kayak. A few people went to the rescue but due to our location the instructors stepped in and set up a town and we all paddled hard to get into the inlet. A brief window had opened up in the boat traffic and we took it.

At first I was nervous about the conditions but once we got out there, I felt that they were big but I was able to handle them. I worked really hard today as my arms feel like lead and so to do my legs. I even felt I was having a good time on the way back with the ocean swells. I find that by the end of a long day like this I am extremely hungry. Due to the conditions, it is hard to eat on the go especially when being asked to tow or pivot your kayak. I think my problem is that I am not that hungry at lunch and while I try to eat enough, it seems like it never is. I might have to find a more energy dense food that doesn't fill me up. Lunch is so short we really don't have much time to digest and a full stomach isn't that comfortable for me. All in all a good day but I am left wondering if I will be too sore tomorrow to do anything.

ACA L4 Certification: Day 3

Today was day three of the Certification training. It was more of a assessment of skills and teaching then a training per se. We had learned all the skills on the first two days and just had to demonstrate we could do the same things on moving water. The expected conditions were about 10 kt winds, about 2-4 kts of current, or 1-2 foot breaking waves. We pretty much had all those conditions at Chesapeake Bay where we had launched. Before we launched we had a few talks that each candidate was required to give. Each talk was about 10 minutes long and had to introduce a topic, go over the basics of the topic, wrap up the topic with a summary, then challenge the listen with a little quiz. We were critiqued on how well we could teach the topic we had been given as well as how well we kept the listener engaged on the topic.

History of Sea Kayaking
My topic was to cover the history of sea kayaking. I didn't find a ton of information on the internet and I don't own any kayaking boats so I had to get what I could from the internet. I had found that kayaking was first used by the northern native populations and was mostly or entirely used for hunting. In fact, qajaq means "hunters boat". I briefly touched on the different regions that had developed kayaking, discussing the types of materials those cultures would have on hand, mostly bone, drift wood, and skins. The kayaks were also sealed with whale fat to keep them water tight. I moved into how kayaking came to the rest of the world and the materials that it started with and how it has evolved. Kayaking is no longer just a kayak for hunting or fishing with but has been used for racing, slalom, whitewater, and freestyle to name a few. And while kayaking has become a very popular sport, being part of the olympics since the 30's, it is still in fact used to this day for transportation, farming and hunting as a way of life still. It was actually quite interesting to read up on the history of kayaking both as a sport and as a way of life.

We also heard talks about clothing to wear when on the water, which ranged from t-shirt and shorts all the way up to dry suits. We had a navigation talk as well as a talk about signaling devices. The last talk just before we got on the water was a talk about group dynamics and staying together from someone from Florida, so we heard his talk which included stuff about native Floridian animals to not worry about. It was rather humorous.

Out on the water we mostly just did a skills check off. We moved around in boxes against, with and broach to the wind to show we would turn and handle out boats in the wind and with wind generated waves. I actually over committed to one of my strokes (the bow rudder) and went over right in front of the instructor. Luckily I rolled back up. I really have to work on my roll and outfitting as I find that I tend to fall out of the boat.

After we were finished today we all drove over to Assateague to meet up with part of the group that was only doing the re-certification. Everyone from my group either had no certification or was going from an L3 level to an L4 level. Today was part of the instructor development workshop as well as seeing if we could perform and teach in the L3 conditions. We moved on without getting any idea if we were certified at the L3 level. A little scary when I think about the conditions we are supposed to be encountering tomorrow. They sound big.

Today I was the only female of the group. I know there are women out there who instruct but I guess there are still fewer women going up through the ranks then men. I noticed the same thing when I was getting my 3 star sea kayaking award. I wonder how well a women's only class would work at a kayak school?