Frontenac Outfitters Level 1 Kayak Skills Course

What an excellent weekend! The Level 1 course at Frontenac Outfitters was held on Pearkes Lake. The weather was perfect.


It is an intensive course. A good part of the Saturday morning was in our beautiful outdoor classroom under the shade of large trees. There we learned about navigation. Specifically UTM and LAT & LON. We also learned how to use the Garmin GPS units. ( waterproof but not buoyant, so attach to decklines).


After that it was onto the water and practice.
We geocached some rubber duckies. Fun, fun, fun.
A good part of Saturday was spent edging, low brace, high brace, rescue assists, paddle float self-rescues and more.
Sunday started with an analysis of two recent sea kayak critical incidents ... one off the east end of Prince Edward County and the other off the coast of Maine, USA.
In both cases the kayakers ended up in harms way because they ignored basic safety principals.


The rest of Sunday was spent on the water. About 6 hours in total.
We practiced high brace turns, low brace turns, towing, assist T-Rescues, and one arm only paddle float self rescue.
There was much more besides but I would have to go over my notes to recollect it all.


There were four participants in the course. On Saturday it was 2 instructors for 4 students. Sunday was even better with 4 instructors for 4 students. This was my fourth course at Frontenac Outfitters . As demonstrated by the instructor/student ratio, Christine and Larry know how to build value into the courses.