| Online Store | Articles | SK Community | Advertisers | Contribute | Contact |
|
| Baby
Steps Regardless of your paddling expertise, your first venture onto the water at night should be somewhere safe. On a calm night with clear skies and moonlight, take your boat to a quiet lake with as few lighted buildings as possible around it and launch. It’s safer to take a paddling partner with you for this. And, as always, it’s important to leave a float plan with someone. As soon as you’ve paddled 100 yards, stop and look around you and behind you. Even a waterway you’re familiar with can look very different at night because the references you depend upon look different (or may not even be visible). Study your view until you’re sure you can find this place when you come back. Take special notice of details like how lights on shore line up or how far the dock extends. When you’re sure you can locate this spot again, you can start your trip. As you paddle, stay as close to shore as is safe and take note of the shapes of the landmass surrounding whatever body of water you’re floating on. Look ahead, and if there’s a point of land not too far away, paddle toward it. There is a tendency for people to “aim” at a point of land as if it’s the target. Unless you actually want to hit it, aim to be offshore of that point far enough to avoid any hidden (underwater) dangers. Test all your lights before you have to depend on them. I like to go out early in the season (spring, where I paddle) with friends to see if I can turn on my new lights wearing paddling gloves and if I can be seen when I want to be. Paddle around until you’re comfortable with navigating on the water at night, then do test rescues until you feel secure with handling kayaks in the dark. Staying close to shore offers both tangible benefits and risks. It’s probably the most unlikely place to encounter other boating traffic—especially large deep-draft vessels—but it’s also the most likely place to find anchored boats and barges, docks and piers, and partially submerged pilings. But what you really don’t want is to get into a line of breakers or heavy rips. It pays to study a marine chart of the area and a tide/current table first. By paddling close to shore, you will be more aware of any current than you would be if you were farther out. Buoys will leave a wake, kelp will point away from the current, and if you stop paddling, you can see progress against the shore more easily if you’re closer. Balanced against those advantages is the downside: You will also be more affected by possibly strong eddy lines and even dangerous rips. Because you may not be able to see these by the marks they make on the water, you should keep an eye on the conditions that cause them, such as a narrowing channel, passages between islands or points of land protruding into what would be the main tidal flow. The real test of your night kayaking skills come when you are caught out late in the day and have to enter an unfamiliar bay after dark. The first thing to remember is that many bays look similar at night. I have a friend who ran his sailboat onto a reef because he was one bay south of the one he really wanted. Other than that—and the fact that the lights of the city at the end of the bay weren’t visible when they should have been—it all looked the same; even the compass course was pretty much the same. It wasn’t exactly right, though, and that should have been a clue. The skipper talked himself into believing that landmarks that weren’t quite the same were “close enough.” So keep your wits about you and if something doesn’t fit, stop and double-check. It might be a good time to use your GPS. A compass and a predetermined compass course are the essentials for a safe passage. Take the time before you go to plot some compass courses for your route. Draw lines on the chart and pencil in the actual headings, and keep your charts available during the voyage. Also decide on and plot “escape routes” that will take you out of danger no matter what else happens. Navigational charts often have fathom lines plotted so that boats with depth sounders can simply follow, say, the 10-fathom curve right into the anchorage. No depth sounder on your kayak? I didn’t think so. There are suitable units for kayaks and even some recent articles about installation, but not many paddlers have one. You can follow around the landmass and into the bay or to the beach, just make sure you stay far enough offshore to keep out of the breakers. Check your charts for rocks or other hazards on which surf may be breaking and circle them. These are usually indicated but may not be shown on charts for developing countries. In fact, the charts for these areas are often based on surveys carried out in the 19th century from sailing vessels. You can even see the tacks the ship took by looking at the zigzag pattern of soundings. Watch for the flash of light reflected from the white crests of breakers, and be especially aware of the way the sea “humps up” around underwater obstructions. In a regular seaway, pay attention to the movement of your kayak for the out-of-sequence, confused waves that may be reflected from a rock close by. If you stay close to the land, you can simply follow it around and into safety as long as you are mindful of any dangers lying offshore. If your destination is a town or city, you’ll be faced with a bright backdrop of lights and reflections against which you’ll need to recognize any navigational aids. These are most often in the form of lighted buoys. These are easy to see if you’re standing on a ship’s bridge high above the water, but a paddler in a kayak will have to pick them out from a horizon cluttered with lights. A string of lighted buoys marking a channel may be clearly discerned on your chart but not be obvious in the landscape ahead of you. Some buoys will seem to be very far apart, and the lights for them will be higher than you might expect because of your low seating. Channel marker buoys, navigational lights, lighthouses and even foghorns all have distinctive patterns of colors, light flashes and sounds that distinguish one from the other in the same area. These are all listed on the Light List available in the U.S. from dealers or online (www.navcen.uscg.gov). You don’t need to be in the channel to use channel markers, but you need to know where the channel is. It’s often safer to be out of the channel to avoid the movements of larger vessels. In harbors with VTS oversight, you’re required to stay out of the VTS channels unless you’re participating in the system, or if you’re crossing, you must cross as quickly and directly as possible. Many harbor entrances have both channel buoys and ranges. A range is a combination of lights and/or day markers set up one behind the other so that when they are aligned (usually one atop the other, but remember they’re designed for boats larger than yours), your vessel is in the center of the channel. Again, if this is a large harbor, it’s probably not a good idea to be trundling along smack-dab in the middle of the entrance channel at 3 knots in your kayak. Some lights are designed to warn you away or to give you specific, even detailed, information. The “red sector” of a lighthouse, for instance, usually marks shoals. So if the light on the lighthouse you’re using for navigating turns from white to red, you have entered a danger zone. These sectors are shown on charts and can be a great navigation aid. Likewise, patterns of white lights are used to warn you of dangerous situations. The International Code of Signals contains the codes for flag signals, flashing light signals, sound signals, radio telephone and radiotelegraph and even hand and arm signals. One important signal is the letter “U,” which means “you are running into danger,” and can be seen automatically flashing (short-short-long) from drill rigs and other semipermanent structures in bays and even out in the ocean. In some developing countries, local boaters have what can only be referred to as a whimsical approach to navigation lights. Many boats simply don’t have them. On one trip across the Sea of Cortez at night, my attention was caught by the sudden disappearance of a steady light on shore and then its reappearance a moment later. The dark mass that had momentarily obscured the light turned out to be a shrimp trawler with no lights heading for the same place I was heading. Be alert for this “occulting,” especially if a large part of the horizon suddenly turns dark. It could be a ship or a barge close by with running lights too high for you to see. Sometimes the only indication of a nearby boat will be a crew member lighting a cigarette. Night Fever The key to night navigation is preparation and experience. Become familiar with being on the water in the dark, and practice the skills it takes to be out there safely when you’re in control of the situation. Learn to recognize how the bottom of the sea is often an extension of the nearby landmass. A gentle slope of land will extend underwater some distance, and you might expect to find breakers farther out than expected. A steep cliff is likely to arise from deep water, but fallen rocks from that cliff can pile up into underwater dangers at its base. Don’t make your turns too quickly rounding a point. Make sure the land is well aft of your shoulder before changing course to avoid getting too close and being set into danger. When rounding a point, you can move from an area of still water into a strong current. Know the tides and the currents for the area you’re paddling and imagine how the water will flow around the land. If you have a GPS, use it to check on your position and progress but don’t just turn it on and leave it on unless you’re navigating a particularly tricky area in impaired visibility. The batteries in your unit are likely to fail just when you need them the most—so use this tool sparingly, but don’t hesitate to use it when you need it. Take your time, keep your wits about you, and practice under controlled conditions. You may discover that you enjoy night paddling. Craig Jungers has been kayaking since the 1970s and has paddled in Greenland, Brazil, Mexico and Canada. He is a former Merchant Marine Officer and sailboat cruiser who now lives on a farm with his wife and two kids in central Washington State. |
| < FIRST PAGE | < PREVIOUS PAGE |