Ocean and Whitewater Kayaking

Our crew is really getting more and more into kayaking. One of our crew adult leaders is a pro kayaker, won many medals in the sport, and now leads groups professionally. The teens just love it and we get requests from other crews and high adventure troops to join us. We make sure every participant is adequately trained for each excursion, and not at a level beyond their capability. Our last trip was ocean kayaking along the coastline for five days, camping each night on the beach, we saw dolphin, sea lions, two whales and it was beautiful days and calm waters all the way. I would recommend this activity to any high adventure crew or troop looking for a real adventure.

Pamlico Sea Base, website found at eccbsa.org under camping tab, is an accredited HA program that offers kayaking as one of their programs. Also offers sailing, SCUBA, and jet skis. And yes that was PSB on the cover of SCOUTING with the jetskis

We took ocean kayaks on an inland wilderness* lake this summer (6 nights, 50 miles afloat) and it was fantastic. Our PLC wants to do the same trip again next year, and I'm hoping they will be able to find time and budget to also add sea kayaking in the San Juan islands.

Since we're still a relatively new troop (< 2 years old), our Scouts are on the younger and smaller side of things. Most of them would have trouble with the physical demands of carrying a week's worth of food on their backs, but the kayaks avoided that problem. Some maturity is still needed (we only took our most active and reliable guys), but it was pretty neat to see them get that kind of extended experience under their belts.

We're looking for ways to add more kayaking to our program.

* edit - well, it's probably not quite right to say it's a wilderness lake, they do allow motorboats, but camping is held to wilderness area party limits and pack-it-in pack-it-out requirements.(This message has been edited by JMHawkins)

That's fantastic that your troop has access to sea kayaks and an experienced paddler to teach them!!!

We're kind of on the lower end of the paddling spectrum. Hubby and I have ten rec kayaks that we use extensively with our troop (small windy rivers and also the lake that our Scout House is on). We also have access to others that we can borrow for larger groups, as well as numerous canoes. We're going to try whitewater kayaking at a different council's scout camp (Gardner Dam) next spring, and are planning a sea kayaking trip (rentals with a guide) to Apostle Islands within the next year or so. Rec kayaks kind of plod along compared to sea kayaks or touring kayaks, but I think they have a place in scout programs. They're a good segway into all sorts of other water activities. The scouts seem to like single boats, vs. tandem canoes, because they can "do their own thing".

Getting the scouts on the water, in one form or another, has been tremendously beneficial to our troop. We've also revamped our outdoor and high-adventure programs as well, but I think the water-related activities are the biggest draw. We've doubled in size the last couple of years, with most of the scouts as active participants.