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Our First Kayak Adventure

We just had to paddle Alaska. Once we finally committed to driving to Alaska for the summer, and once we finally started narrowing down all of our possibile activities, it became clear that we really had to try to come up with the time and money to do some kayaking. Everything we read was saying that Alaska had some of the best coastline for kayaking in North America, and this was our once in a lifetime chance.

We had a few concerns, first of which being that we had never been in a kayak, ever. Did we really want our first time to be in the freezing glacial waters of Alaska? Another was, as is normal with us, the money. Kayaking is just one of those sports where the combination of equipment and risk add up to a steep entry fee, no matter how you try to start. And then we doubted our ability. We are pretty average for active 40ish office workers, meaning we do some biking and hiking on weekends, but we have no particular endurance or upper body strength. Could we even paddle a kayak?

We began our typical research cycle to find out if, how and when we could do a kayak trip. We talked to anyone and everyone, and started collecting stories about friends of friends who had gone to Seattle and done a three day kayak trip no problem, or someone’s sister who paddled in the Great Lakes with no experience and it was much easier than expected. These stories, in summary, suggested that we could take a guided multi-day trip having no experience and actually have a great time.

So now, it was just a matter of:  

1. Picking a Trip
2. Getting Ready
3. Heading Out
4. Learning Lessons

1. Picking a Trip

In the early spring, we began planning our summer using the Lonely Planet Alaska book, which mentions kayaking and suggested a few best areas that were already on our itinerary- Seward’s Kenai Fjords National Park and Ketchikan’s Misty Fjords. We got online and looked for anything and everything about kayaking in these areas. In a newsgroup about kayaking (searching for alaska kayak) we saw unanimous confirmation of the Lonely Planet recommendations- these were the places to go. While we would have to expect a lot of rain in either place, both offered amazing mountain scapes littered with glaciers and dotted with wildlife ranging from bald eagles to puffins, otters to humpback whales.

In the newsgroups, we also found strong recommendations for an outfitter in Seward called Kayak Adventures Worldwide (KAW), which we had seen listed in the Lonely Planet guide. We had actually already found their website which had very good general information about kayaking around Seward, as well as good information about their rentals, lessons, guided rentals and tours. (Note: Since our trip they have changed the business somewhat and the site no longer offers kayak rentals.) Having found outside confirmation of their quality, we started using their site to shape our trip. We knew we needed a guide, since we were totally clueless about the first thing related to kayaks. We were not sure if we needed lessons before the trip, but the site sounded confident that their guides could get us up and going with zero experience. Given that our friends’ stories had said similar things, we decided to trust it.

Now we were getting to the money part. Could we even afford to do this? This is where the KAW website really shines. While other websites were showing exorbitant tours we couldn’t even consider, this company had clearly laid out a variety of budget options depending on your own personal style and needs. Rather than focus on preset tours, they offer guidelines on how to build a custom trip to your budget. The coolest part is that they offer two tiers of guided trips for any level of paddler. So just because we were newbies we didn’t have to pay for extra support we didn’t need; they understood that we could have experience and equipment for camping without having kayaking experience. We were able to skip the fully supported tour where they provide camping equipment, food, cooking, etc, and selected a “guided rental” where we could just hire the guide and boats while providing the rest ourselves. Yet another cost saving option they offered was to join with other clients doing a similar trip, as they charge less per person for larger groups. Using their very effective online calendar, we could see what trips were scheduled that we might hook up with. (See August 2007 for example.)

By this point in our planning, we had convinced a friend to fly to Alaska and join us kayaking, so based on his schedule we picked our dates. They didn’t line up with any other groups, so we made our plans based on the three-person rate.  We all agreed we could afford a 3 or 4 day trip to Aialik Bay, but were a little leery of going for too long our first time out. Now was the time to call and start asking questions. Wendy Doughty, the owner, promptly answered the phone and she was very enthusiastic about sharing details, clarifying concerns and promoting the longest trip we could afford. You might be thinking she was promoting her own best interest, but when you talk to Wendy it is obvious that it’s her passion for kayaking and not money that’s talking. She was confident that first-time-ever paddlers could fully enjoy a 4-day trip, so we went for it. Wendy booked us for our dates and gave us the passcode to access even more information on the website related to safety, packing, etc. We would hear from our guide when the trip dates came closer.

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This article was written on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 and is filed under Mastering Skills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.