Basic Ocean Skills Trip

This full-day trip is the foundation for your ocean paddling skills! We will extend what you learned in Introduction to Kayaking by covering more boat-maneuvering skills (especially utilizing edging to make our boats turn faster), bracing skills, and rescue skills (including self and assisted rescues).

Since we are venturing onto the ocean for the first time as sea kayakers, we will also discuss such ocean-specific issues as basic navigation, rules of the road, and VHF radio usage. And finally, we will teach you skills to deal with the sea kayaker’s biggest adversary: wind.

We’ll meet at the Newton Historic Boathouse and travel by van to the destination.  The location will be decided by the guide depending on weather and tide, but  might include Gloucester, Marblehead, and Cohasset. We plan to return to Newton approximately 9 hours after the trip departs.

Pre-Requisites & Requirements: Before signing up, you must have:

• Formal introductory instruction, like our Introduction to Kayaking, Introductory Trip, or equivalent.
• Previous practice of a wet exit with spray skirt, where you flipped a kayak, removed the sprayskirt, and exited the kayak while underwater.
• Previous practice of an assisted rescue, where you wet-exited the kayak in deep water and were rescued by another kayaker.
• Ability to paddle 5 miles in an outing.