Performance kayaking

Sea Kayaking Vancouver Island Whitewater & Performance Sea Kayaking Quadra Island.

You do not have to have good technique to paddle a kayak and you can even have a lot of fun with poor technical skills. But having proper technique and solid basic skills will make your Vancouver Island kayaking adventures more comfortable, more safe -- and even more fun. Performance kayaking is about excellent paddling skills. Beginner kayakers can start with ‘performance” technique – and go from there!

At Coast Mountain we have always tried to balance the importance of good skills with (however well you paddle) having good fun. Our guided British Columbia trips include pre-trip instruction/refresher of basic skills and proper technique. You’ll always be able to cover the distance -- and with guidance and a little effort you can improve skills along the journey. On guided trips safety is assured because our leaders have advanced kayaking skills, lots of experience, and healthy respect for Mother Nature. No arguing the many merits of the no-worries all inclusive tour – we welcome you to join us again and again! But kayaking also offers many other possibilities for personal challenge and personal growth.

A basic set of skills will help you paddle efficiently. You’ll be able to paddle farther and faster, with less effort. You will be able to maneuver your kayak in ways that are fun and useful. You will paddle with the comfortable knowledge that you can avoid most mishaps and easily manage others. You will feel more happy and less tired at the end of the day!

Once you’ve mastered some basics, you may feel excited to learn more. You may feel ready to head out on your own adventures, want to really solidify basics and learn a bit more. You could master some advanced bracing skills, you could learn some different capsize recovery techniques. You could learn about tides and currents, coastal weather, about kayak navigation, and low impact coastal camping…

You might also choose to use kayaking as a form of physical exercise: you can join groups and paddle long-distance, go kayak racing, or just enjoy a fresh-air-day-paddling with a bunch of friends. .

You could even learn to roll your kayak! When you can come-back-up easily, you can move into rougher waters with confidence. You can play in the waves, challenge your abilities and develop new skills. With advanced kayaking skills, a whole new adrenaline-filled world opens. You can journey safely to more remote places. And (not for all of us, though it is always exciting to watch) high performance kayak surfing is a dynamic, in-the-moment, active adventure! It challenges the best kayakers, and you never finish with this sport.

Discovery Islands Lodge, our Quadra Island location, is perfectly situated for learning kayak skills: out the back door we have the warm Quadra Lakes, beautiful location for practicing flat-water paddling and kayak rescues, re-entries and rolling. The ocean in front of the lodge is usually calm, fine for flat-water paddling, bracing, turns and other maneuvers… and just 500 metres around the point we have Surge Narrows and Canoe Pass – a place with controlled and predictable tidal current that is excellent for understanding moving water, and learn to control your kayak in current, eddylines and surf small waves. For those comfortable in this (class I-III) water, there is another massive and magnificent tidal wave a few kilometers up Okisollo Channel …

Kayaks come in many shapes and sizes! Beyond personal fit, kayaks are carefully designed for many attributes. Boats that feel comfortable for the novice paddler are not the same designs that most advanced paddlers prefer. We have many different makes and models, and will fit you with a kayak appropriate for your size, comfortable for your skills, and selected for how and where you plan to paddle.

We use kayaks made by Nimbus, Necky, Current Designs, Seaward, and Nigel Dennis.

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