Hi sea kayakers. Adam Bolonsky here at twitter.com/seakayak. W elcome to another installment of the fence post navigation series, your online resource for sea kayaking tips, tools, and pointers.
Today’s topic: sea kayaking at night.
Sea kayakers paddling at night face a host of potent but not insurmountable challenges. First off, in the dark we lose sight of the horizon and of the landmarks we use to gauge our position and forward progress. It’s tough to keep track of where we are and where we’ve been. Also, wave size and swell height are hard to assess.
As for other boats on the water, a source of potential rundowns, they’re difficult to detect except by the drone of their engines and the wink of their running lights, red to port, green to starboard, a white light at the masthead or near the stern.
Typically we rely on our ears to make up for what we can’t see — just one factor that can make the nighttime paddling environment. spooky. Every sound – the plop of a fish, the crash of a wave, the buzz and whine of a passing powerboat — is fraught with mystery. We end up spending considerable time and energy trying to interpret the meaning of innocuous sounds we would otherwise pay attention to, adding an element of mental strain to sea kayaking at night.
Well, so much for nighttime sea kayaking’s psychological elements. Let’s turn to a couple of its logistical issues.
Federal laws ubiquitous enough to be considered worldwide require that all boats under 18 feet long need to be able to show a single white light.
That single white light can be as basic — and inexpensive — as the plastic C-lights, made by ACR and sold by marine suppliers all over North America for about $12 US. Another option is a deck lamp affixed to your or aft deck with a suction cup and backup tether.
Some kayakers go an extra mile. They supplement their single white lights or deck lamps with glow sticks, reflective deck lines and swatches of SOLAS tape.
So much for making your sea kayak legal at night and more visible to other boaters. Let’s have a look at nighttime kayak navigation. You’ll need a compass that get washed away by a wave and, just as important, a compass whose card and lubber line are large enough — and well lit enough — that you can read them in darkness.
You’ll do quite poorly, though, to rely on a headlamp. Any headlamp bright enough to illuminate your compass will reduce your range of vision to the cone of light falling across your foredeck and spilling over into the water to either side. Your night vision will be ruined, and your range of vision severely limited.
A better solution for nighttime kayak navigation is a compass illuminated with the same sort of light on any vessel that navigates in darkness as a matter of course. You’ll want, on your headlamp, a low watt red light that provides just enough illumination for to read your compass, but not so bright that it ruins your night vision. Alternatively, you’ll want a compass whose card is lit with a low-watt red bulb.
So far only one manufacturer, Seattle Sports, out in Seattle Washington, has come up with a nighttime kayaking compass. You attach it to your foredeck with a suction cup and bungee cord. They call this compass the night quest.
The night quest its submersible and comes equipped with a beefy gasket which waterproofs the compass’s internal electronics. The night quest includes a photosensitive switch that automatically turns on the compass’s low watt red bulb when darkness falls. The bulb’s faint but persistent red light is just bright enough to illuminate the compass card and lubber, line, leaving you with enough night vision to scan the surrounding darkness for lighthouses, flashing bell buoys, and just as important, the running lights of other boats in the water. The compass retails for 40 dollars US.
I’d give away the one I received in the mail for demo purposes, but someone here in New England has already claimed it. But if you’re interested in learning more about the compass, you can always go online.Well that’s it for today’s installment of twitter.com/seakayak’s post fence navigation series. I’m Adam Bolonsky at twitter.com/seakayak. Thanks for stopping by. Until next time, see ya ’round!