Feel your way through the darkness
Guide your soul into the light
Swim into the open water
Drift on the tides that you may find
– cass & slide

With Canoecopia coming up soon I was thinking about all the folks who will again be looking for a new kayak.   For many,  they will be looking for their first boat.  I don’t envy them.  Yeah, there is a certain joy to finally deciding to buy a kayak, browsing through review after review, and digging down into the minutia of drag coefficients with caffeine fueled reps.   Shopping is one of those few places in day to day life where we can display to others our intellectual prowess.   It’s interesting really.  Sometimes I think that the person who is still to buy his first kayak probobly knows more about them than the person who has been paddling the same beat up boat  for the past 20 years.  We get over it.

The problem with choosing your first kayak is that you rarely have the paddling skills to make one boat really stand out from the other.  And there’s the rub.  Until you gain the skills to notice the differences and figure out your own personal paddling style,  you’re going to be happy with just about any kayak you buy.  Well, most of the time.  Even with the best of intentions it’s rare that your first kayak will be your last.  As your skills improve and as you start to see what kind of kayaker you’re going to be, the better equipped you will be to make a good judgment.

Everyone has an opinion.  There will always be someone to tell you what sort of boat you need.  There are some reasonable guidelines.   However, experienced kayakers will usually tell you to just buy what’s best for you.  We’ve been there.  We’re aware that while we could certainly talk to you about safely features, materials and such we can’t really help you choose a boat.  What’s right for you today, may not be in a year.  Your skills and your goals will change.  Certainly you can drop $4000 on a kayak if you have the money to spend.  But none of us wants to be responsible for a new paddler dropping that kind of money on a kayak they never paddle or that turns out not to be right for them a year later.

The best advice we can give you is to wait.  Take lessons, paddle lots of boats and then make an informed decision.  However, if you are like me, you want a kayak NOW!!  Ok then.  Next. . .

You have two paths.  You can buy a cheap “starter” boat and figure out if you really want to make kayaking part of your life.  A year from now you will either know you love the sport, you’ll sell the poor thing, trade it, or it will become a dust farm.  Who knows??  The down side is that if you keep trading up you’ll find you may spend more money than if you would have bought a top of the line sea kayak in the first place.  The other choice is to take the leap for a top-of-the-line sea kayak.  Maybe you could cut some costs by purchasing a plastic version.  Not a bad idea, and plastic is pretty tough.  However, if you are having fantasies of the wide open sea. .  you may want fiberglass or Kevlar.   Again you can just smoke the credit card, but don’t overlook used boats either.  I took all these approaches at one time or another.  Consider this a warning. . .

All I knew for sure was that I wanted a sea kayak.  My first was a Current Designs Breeze.  In fact I still have it.  I credit the sales person at Rutabaga to no end for pointing me to that boat.  It was a perfect first step.  I will never sell boat because it’s the perfect kayak for taking out friends and folks first getting interested in kayaking.  For myself though, I kept advancing and wanting to do more. For me it soon became just too wide and sluggish.  I went through another 4 or 5 kayaks.  Each one traded at a loss of a few hundred dollars a trade.  Each trade had their pluses and minuses but I kept outgrowing.  Yet I was being cautious.  Investing in a fiberglass kayak was scary.  In the end I realized that for me kayaking would always be an important part of my life and that I could jump to a “real” kayak.

At that point though, picking that high end boat was  a bit like tossing a dart with a blindfold on.  I knew I wanted a fiberglass boat, because they were most easily repaired. (I’m rough on gear.) Otherwise most of the reviews were way over my head. I didn’t know what applied to me and what was just “expert” jargon. The only judgment that seemed reasonable to me was to get what those “expedition” kayakers were paddling.  I knew that if a kayak was tough and efficient enough for them It could certainly handle me.  I bought a used NDK Explorer.  It was a great choice. I doubt I will ever part from my Explorer.  Still though, even then I kept learning.  As much as I loved the Explorer it didn’t do everything I wanted to do.  In time I got a Valley Anas Acuta.  It helped me learn a lot of new fancy rolls.  I really loved that boat, but for me it was specialized. When I went back out into the rough stuff, I went back to my Explorer.

These days as most of you know I paddle a Rockpool Alaw Bach.  It is by far my favorite kayak of any I’ve ever owned. The Bach for me is the best of both worlds.  It’s fast, yet stable and nimble as a ballet dancer.  It can carry enough gear for the sort of trips I take, still the volume is low enough that I can enjoy playing around with all those traditional rolls as well.  The Alaw Bach shines in surf and current which is what I’m sort of into right now.  And there’s an important point. “What I’m into right now”.  What kind of paddler I’ve become.  At least for the moment. 

So maybe in the end the most important thing about choosing your first kayak is this;  Don’t be afraid to make a mistake.  Don’t try to know everything. At this point in your paddling career it’s guesswork.  Just pick a boat that is safe, within your budget and well, turns you on! Then just get out there and enjoy it. Your first kayak will always hold a special place in your paddling experience no matter what sort of paddler you become.  Yeah, it will always be special, even if it won’t be your last.

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