Island Escapades / Day guides course

March 19, 2009 | Johan | gulf islands, kayaking | comment »

Today I joined Jack Rosen of Island Escapades for the first day of their Day Guides course. Jack has operated Island Escapades on Salt Spring Island for over 18 years, and offers a whole range of outdoor activities from his store in Dowtown Ganges. He also carries a small but very well selected range of kayak gear, clothing and camping equipment.

Jack explaining a rescue

On this bitterly cold winter day,  we started by reviewing all the essential paddle strokes and later progressed into edging, leaning and bracing. After lunch and hot tea brought our core temp back to normal,  it was time for the inevitable swim.

While practising both self- and assisted rescues, I was shocked how quickly I started to loose useful functioning of my hands and fingers. The initial cold shock and icy water also made it really difficult to think straight, and I found myself making a stupid mistake in a standard self rescue which I have done a 1001 times.

So the one thing I learned this day, is that my current wetsuit and paddling jacket are no match for the winter conditions. Not even with all the extra wool and fleece layers I was wearing. Guess it’s time to bite the bullet and buy that hideously expensive but oh-so-comfortable dry suit…