Kayakwriter's Blog
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Philip Torrens is an established writer, emerging photographer, avid sea kayaker and camper, and human companion to my faithful sheltie. Find writing and photography about the outdoors, sea kayaking, camping and dogs on his Kayakwriter's Blog.
Kayakwriter's Blog
1M ago
In a previous post, we talked about how to use the shoreline and compass bearings taken on recognizable landmarks as Lines Of Position to determine our location. At the end of that post, I mentioned that when you’re away from ..read more
Kayakwriter's Blog
2M ago
The first module of the online sea kayak Trip Planning Course I teach is all about navigating by chart and compass. And one of the questions I inevitably get asked during that lesson is “What about GPSs or smartphone/tablet navigation ..read more
Kayakwriter's Blog
3M ago
January 21, 2024 The relentless icy rain this Sunday morning was pretty uninspiring. But we thirteen Jericho Beach Kayak guides had committed to a group daytrip weeks before. So we had a certain professional pride (plus a gender-neutral machismo) that ..read more
Kayakwriter's Blog
4M ago
So let me start by acknowledging that over the years I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time and money on the various incarnations of my electric bilge pumps. At this point, it’s as much about the intellectual challenge and the ..read more
Kayakwriter's Blog
7M ago
I hugely enjoy my work as a sea kayak instructor, but since I’m only certified to teach up to Paddle Canada’s Sea Kayaking Level 1 on my own, I usually just get to paddle locally in the Iy̓ál̓mexw/Ayyulshun (Jericho Beach/English ..read more
Kayakwriter's Blog
10M ago
One of the things I love about working as an instructor-guide with a raft of mostly younger colleagues is the chance to spark off their energy and enthusiasm. But at work, the longest paddles we typically do together are day ..read more
Kayakwriter's Blog
1y ago
April 7, 2023 We’d laid plans for this trip with an Option A (Howe Sound/Átl’ka7tsem) and an Option B (Indian Arm/Nuth Khaw Yum Provincial Park). The predicted winds made Howe Sound sound rather too exciting, especially given that if we ..read more
Kayakwriter's Blog
1y ago
In a previous post, we talked about Lines Of Position and about two kinds of LOPs: the shoreline, and compass bearings taken from recognizable landmarks. But sometimes we just don’t want to break our paddling flow to stop and take ..read more
Kayakwriter's Blog
1y ago
In an earlier post, we discussed how to use a chart and compass to find a compass bearing we could follow to a desired destination. But all those techniques for heading somewhere new require us to know where we are ..read more
Kayakwriter's Blog
2y ago
If you’ve done any map/chart and compass navigation at all, you’ve wrestled with the inconvenient truth: with some very limited local exceptions, in most parts of the world, the needle on your compass does not point to the true North ..read more