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
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.