Sea Kayak

Sea Kayaking A Manual for Long-Distance Guide The Classic Guide The fourth paperback edition of this book comes in response to a steady stream of changes that have occurred in what was in r98r an "off the wall" activity for a few eccentric individuals. Now sea kayaking is a popular mainstream activity for outdoor enthusiasts and is among the fastest-growing water sports in North America. During the first ten of those intervening sixteen years, I turned my passion of twenty years into my livelihood, and, I confess, my kayaking fame dimmed insofar as getting out in the boat was concerned. It did not dim in other ways, however, and the time out, combined with the exposure to different points of view, has helped me to clarify, my thoughts about the world of kayaking. In 1990, I sold my business interests in kayaking and to a large extent dropped out of the world of paddling, which had so dominated *y life. In the years that followed I paddled almost exclusively with my children and from them discovered the gentler side of kayaking, which, in my youth, I had mostly skipped in my zeal for paddling challenges. It has been personally gratifying to watch sea kayaking go mainstream and to know that I have contributed to this trend. Yet at the same time, I cant help but regret the passing of a time of innocence, a rime when the sight of a sea kayak on the roof of a passing car was excuse enough to pull over and chat. For paddlers, it has been a period of much learning and refining, and the threads of knowledge and communicable experience have formed a rich tapestry. Books on the subject have proliferated-and improved Kayak instruction has become an industry unto itself and this edition of Sea Kayaking has devoted a new section to this development.. The section on kayak instruction is based on the results of a questionnaire I sent to dozens of active sea kayaking instructors. I did this in the hope of highlighting the diversity of ideas that I realized was out there. And diverse they are. The downside of such diversion', of course, is that there are good and bad ideas, safe and unsafe practices being taught, and how, you may ask, could I favor such a cauldron of ideas when something as silly as the 'All-In Rescue" is still being taught? Because the knowledge required for sea kayaking is so encompassing, I have also frequently chosen to omit the general in favour of the specific. For example, my chapter on first aid ignores such essentials as rescue breathing and the treatment of bleeding, since these are well covered in general publications on the subject. It focusses instead on kayak-related ailments. I trust the reader to already know the basics-for know them he or she must when embarking on a sea journey. Navigation, camping and general survival are other areas in which I have assumed that the reader is not a novice. The information presented here is geared to kayaking situations and seen from the viewpoint of a kayaker, particularly those problems most likely to be encountered on long kayak journeys. If you need specialized survival information, books such as the SAS Survival Handbook do the subject justice. Contents: 1)  Equipment 2)  Technique 3)  Seamanship, Self-Rescue & Assisted Rescues 79 4)  Navigation 5)  Weather 6)  Reading the Sea 7)  Hazards 8)  Storm &, Other Emergency procedures 9)  Camping, Food Gathering & the Environment 10)  First Aid 11)  Survival Situations 12)  Planning an Expedition 13)  Tours, Rentals & Instruction 14)  Sea Kayaking for People with Disabilities