Comments on: Sea Kayaking At Night

By: bernie

bernie — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:55:59 +0000

Hi Dunks,

I’ve found your blog as a result of meeting and talking to you at the education conference we attended today (12/11/2010). It makes fascinating reading, and sounds like something I’d love to have a crack at once I’ve tried sea kayaking, which i have’nt actually done yet, altough I ocassionally play in my GP boat down at Leep in the early morning.
As luck would have it, my daughter asked me what I want for my rapidly approaching birthday/christmas present, so I asked for my gang to treat me to a sea kayaking session with Liquidlogistics, which you reminded me about today, so that’s a result !

meanwhile, maybe see you on the water, and in the meantime would be intersted in seeing your night time (or any time) paddling photo’s

“Carry on Paddling”, Bernie, kayakking

By: Jöns Aschan

Jöns Aschan — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:46:09 +0000

Hello Dunks,
I would add a couple of extra items. Compass and GPS with a couple of waypoints to safe harbours. Mist could blow in quickly and unexpectedly. I wrote a trip report that covers my “experiment” with finding home in mist and darkness. In my area it could as well be a snowfall.
http://paddlingsfabriken.fi/kayaking/GPSorNo.php

Cheers and happy paddling, from Jöns

By: kayaksandkayaking

kayaksandkayaking — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:34:55 +0000

Thanks for all the info! I find it immensely helpful that you also linked to the exact lights that you use.

By: Daily Ocean Rowing, Kayaking and Water Expeditions News Roundup Fri 27 Nov

Daily Ocean Rowing, Kayaking and Water Expeditions News Roundup Fri 27 Nov — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:07:17 +0000

[...] Sea kayaking at night An excellent article covering all aspects of night kayaking from equipment through to safety precautions. [...]

By: Dunks

Dunks — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:13:55 +0000

@ Eurion – thanks for the comments.

@ Craig – Superb article – thanks for providing the link. To a great extent I actually agree with your views on lights. As mentioned in my post, I keep the head torch off most of the time due to it’s detrimental effect on night vision.

The Solent is renowned for being on of the UK’s busiest waterways with vessels ranging from kayaks to super-liners and oil tankers. In the shallower areas I often meet jet-ski’s, ribs and small fishing boats at night.

With such a high volume of traffic, even at night I keep deck lights on for safety. Being low down, they cut some night vision but the pay off is they make me visible to sometimes fast moving small vessels. However if i’m confident the coast is clear or I paddle in quiet areas I will turn the fore-deck light off as you are quite correct, you can see more without lights on even on darker nights. In hindsight I should have made this point in my original post so thanks for raising that!

By: Craig Jungers

Craig Jungers — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:43:15 +0000

I wrote an article for Sea Kayaker Magazine back in 2006 that covers this subject in some detail. Although my ideas on lighting may differ than some presented here. The article is on line at: http://www.seakayakermag.com/2006/Oct06/Night01.htm

By: eurion

eurion — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:37:39 +0000

Found this post useful and interesting. Don’t come across many night time paddling observations. Thanks.

By: Dunks

Dunks — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:01:41 +0000

@Ross – glad it provided the information you were after – will look into the extra info – maybe as an addendum to this post.

@Simon Thanks Simon! Hope the talks are going well!

By: Simon Willis

Simon Willis — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:42:25 +0000

Really interesting and very useful. Thanks for this!
Simon

By: Ross

Ross — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:12:26 +0000

This is excellent, thank you so much for the information! Can’t wait until I’m equipped to get out there!

If you found time to do an article on what kind of wind conditions you set as your limit, or how the wind affects your paddling that would be very cool!