PA Boater Safety

So, that past two Thursdays I spent with my dad at Peters Marine in Allentown taking the Basic Boating class. It prepared us to take our boating safety test in order to get our NASBLA approved certificate. The class was very well done. Kudos to Bobby from Peters Marine and Bob from the PA Fish & Boat Commission. http://www.petersmarine.com/

While neither Dad or I needed the class we both found it important to know what boaters should be doing. Even though technically as a non-powered boat I have the right of way in my kayak, I want to know what other people are supposed to do. And technically I'm still responsible for knowing the info in the manual.

I got 100% correct on my test and sent the paperwork in today with the $10 to get my permanent card. They ran the class for free, so it couldn't be beat. If you take the course online it costs something like $45.

I'm looking forward to taking some of the other seminars that they will hopefully hold there. I'm really interested in some of the courses that the US Power Squadron do. In fact, Kelly's Canoe and Kayak mentioned doing some winter gatherings and I suggested some of their paddle friendly classes such as: Paddle Smart, Basic Coastal Navigation, How to Use a Chart, Onboard Weather Forecasting, etc. http://www.usps.org/e_stuff/seminars.htm

Hopefully I can pick up some more of these educational classes over the winter when opportunities to go out are less.

ACA Quickstart Class

On Friday I went down to French Creek State Park in Elverson, PA to take a Quickstart Your Kayak class. In the process I joined the ACA for 6 months. We pulled out onto Scott's Run Lake. There wasn't anyone else on the water except our little crew. The other two people taking the class had already been on the water before so we got through the entire class early and learned some extra strokes, plus got to paddle more of the lake.

I must say I absolutely HATED the yak that I was in. It was a Perception Prodigy. I'm going to guess it was a 10', maybe a 12' but doubtful. The tracking was horrible. I felt like I was facing a different direction every time I put the paddle in the water. The cockpit was so open it may as well have been a SOT. It is not a boat I'm interested in at all. The deck was non-existant and the sides were high. The thing must have been two feet across. Short arms plus high and wide boat do not mix.

Things went well. The gentleman running the class told me he thinks I have a lot of potential to become a really good kayaker. He suggested I look at plastic Necky kayaks.

I can't wait to go back out again. They still suggest you take the full Intro class. There we'd get the paddle float rescue, etc. The only problem is finding one that's close!

Shark Week

So...I figured that Shark Week on Discovery channel is at least slightly relevant to a Kayak Blog. They're currently showing reruns from past years. The episode on right now is basically how to avoid a shark attack. They just did research on bathing suit colors, which I'm sure would double for kayaks and PFDs. The most attacked color was yellow, then red, lastly black. So maybe I'm not thinking about a Hi-Vis Yellow PFD anymore. I can stick with the orange or even the pink. While I want to be seen let's not press our luck, right?