Table Of ContentS E A
K AYA K I N G
The Classic Manual for Touring,
from Day Trips to Major Expeditions
JOHN DOWD
Foreword by FREYA HOFFMEISTER
Vancouver/Berkeley
Copyright © 1981, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1997,
2004, 2015 by John Dowd
Foreword copyright © 2015 by Freya Hoffmeister
15 16 17 18 19 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a
licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access
Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca
or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
Greystone Books Ltd.
www.greystonebooks.com
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
isbn 978-1-77164-143-2 (pbk.)
isbn 978-1-77164-144-9 (epub)
Editing by Lucy Kenward (sixth edition)
Cover design by Nayeli Jimenez
Text design by Jessica Sullivan and Nayeli Jimenez
Cover photograph by Joel W. Rogers
Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens
Distributed in the U.S. by Publishers Group West
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada
Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the
Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax
Credit and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book
Fund for our publishing activities.
Greystone Books is committed to reducing the consumption
of old-growth forests in the books it publishes. This book is
one step towards that goal.
To Paul Souter, who provided the plans for my first kayak
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Foreword vii
Introduction ix
1 Equipment 1
2 Technique 51
3 Risk, self-rescue and assisted rescues 71
4 Navigation 105
5 Weather 123
6 Reading the sea 133
7 Hazards 147
8 Storm and other emergency procedures 171
9 Camping, food gathering and the environment 181
10 First aid 209
11 Survival situations 223
12 Planning an expedition 235
13 Tours, rentals and instruction 247
14 Sea kayaking for people with special needs 263
Appendix A: Transoceanic solos 267
Appendix B: Sea kayaking photography 273
Appendix C: Responsibility in the outdoors 276
Bibliography 280
Index 290
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Ken Fink, Matt Broze, Lee Moyer, Dan Lewis, John
Dawson, Mercia Sixta, Marlin Bayes, Lynn Smith, Takehiro Shibata and
J.F. Marleau for their immediate and helpful contributions to this and
previous editions. A special thanks to Robert Bringhurst, my first editor,
whose influence is still keenly felt after five subsequent editions, and to
Marilyn Sacks, Nancy Flight and Lucy Kenward for their patient edito-
rial massaging. Thanks to Sasanuma San and Yama-Kei Publishers Co.
Ltd., my publishers in Japan, for the use of their excellent illustrations.
Finally, thank you to Beatrice “Hawkeye,” my good wife, for her usual
valuable input.
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Foreword
My first thoughts when being invited to write the foreword to such a legend-
ary long-distance sea kayaking manual were: How can I contribute to and
praise a book that first came out in 1981 when I was only 17 and didn’t
even know what a kayak was?
Thirty-four years ago, John Dowd was helping to develop our mu-
tually loved sport from its roots and soon wrote a book about his wide-
spread experience in long-distance sea kayaking. He grew with the sport,
as did this must-have book. With each new edition, John lovingly updated,
expanded and revised our understanding of the contemporary world of
sea kayaking, which, amazingly, didn’t change that much. The sea and the
weather will likely be the same even in 100 years, though our kit and our
technique may have improved considerably by then.
Still, a sea kayak is only as good as its paddler, which means using your
brain and your body, in this order, to get where you’re going—and to get
there in style and safety. A comprehensive manual like this one can help
deepen knowledge you’ve gained on the water, allowing you to cross-
check what you have learned through personal experience and in classes,
and provide new inspiration.
Through the nearly 60,000 copies of this book he’s sold, John has
instructed and encouraged thousands of readers worldwide to go out and
do their own personal trips. Although I feel like a newbie to sea kayaking
compared to John, our worlds are intersecting. I may be a paddler of the
“new” age of blogs and online publications, where a trip report or a piece of
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viii | sea kayaking
advice is but a keystroke away, but I am truly and widely inspired by all
the many legends of sea kayaking whose tales of adventure and words of
wisdom are told in “old” books. I have a large collection of sea kayaking
books at home, and without a doubt I consider John’s Sea Kayaking to be
one of the very best!
Get out there, be adventurous, keep curious, have fun and stay safe!
Happy paddling!
freya hoffmeister, expedition paddler
Freya Hoffmeister with the signature kayak she is using to paddle
around South America. Michael Neumann, Kanu Magazin
Introduction
Ten years ago, just as the fifth edition of this book was being published,
my wife, Beatrice, and I moved into a cedar-shake cabin on a wild surf
beach at the north end of Vargas Island, some 13 kilometres (8 miles)
beyond Tofino, on British Columbia’s Pacific Coast. It satisfied our urge
for remote living (our nearest neighbour was a four-hour walk away) and
provided a nice counterpoint to years of following our ballerina daughter
around Europe and Asia. We arrived in a large double kayak loaded with
supplies, tools and our elderly border collie, Cobber, and immediately set
about clearing a garden around the house and building accommodation
for family and friends. It was not long before we slipped to the dark side
and purchased a rib (rigid inflatable boat) with a 30-horsepower motor,
relegating the kayaks to occasional fishing trips and forays to town when
the surf was too big to break out the inflatable. Not coincidentally, the
beach where we lived happened to be a favourite destination of kayakers
exploring Clayoquot Sound or cruising the west coast of Vancouver
Island. From this vantage point, I kept in touch with the big changes
occurring in sea kayaking.
During the first years when we lived on Vargas, it was common to
encounter thirty or forty kayakers camped among the logs on “our” beach
during the summer. A sunny Labour Day weekend saw so many paddlers
that late arrivals had trouble finding a spot for their tents. Ten years later,
however, the only Labour Day visitors were a party of campers dropped
off by a water taxi. It wasn’t a sudden shift; more and more we’d been
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