Deep Cove Kayaking: Beginners Lessons

This past weekend (Sunday actually) Robyn and I had scheduled kayaking lessons in Deep Cove early in the morning. For those who do not know where Deep Cove is located in North Vancouver near Mount Seymour and about 20 minutes outside the downtown core of Vancouver. Deep Cove is also part of the Indian Arm which is one of many fjords in British Columbia and offer scenery such as a 50m high waterfall, 6,821 hectares of old-growth forests and is an important area to the First Nations people.

Robyn and I have always wanted to try kayaking and found that Deep Cove Canoe and Kayak offers various levels of lessons from the complete beginners (us) to the more advanced exploration kayakers who might want a refresher course on nautical navigation. Our level 1 course consisted of preparing the kayak with the essential gear (as well as the mandatory gear as set by the coast guard), launching, rudder control, forward paddling, backward paddling, even side paddling. We also touched on various techniques such as: how to turn out kayaks while moving or in a stationary position to how to come to a quick complete stop at full speed. Normally classes have a maximum of 6 people but since the weather wasn’t great (just really over cast and it was trying to rain) Robyn and I ended up being the only two people in our class. Our instructor also had someone shadowing him so it was like a private lesson for the both of us.

The weather (as I mentioned above) was not the greatest but it did not rain while we were out on the water. The water was calm and wonderful to navigate on as it offered a smooth surface for us to paddle on. Deep Cove offers a great area to learn how to kayak in as it is protected by most elements (waves, boaters etc).

Our instructors Marty and Pam where awesome in showing us various technique and helping us become better paddlers. They would give us fun and competitive exercises to help us build our paddling knowledge and experience while helping us understand how we can go about improving out technique.

If you are wanting to learn how to ocean kayak in a fun and beautiful environment I would suggest heading over to Deep Cove in North Vancouver and checking out Deep Cove Canoe and Kayak. Asking for Marty or Pam would be also a great idea too as they ensured we had a fun and informative 3 hour lesson.

Next we need to take our Level 2 which involves learning how to recover from capsizing. We learnt that without your Level 2 (capsize experience) many kayak rental places will not rent to you. More of a personal safety issue than being picky, but we understand, what do you do if you capsize? Swimming to shore is usually not an option especially in very frigid waters and some people might freak out if they suddenly are found upside down in the water!

We both really enjoyed our time out in Deep Cove on kayaks and we both cannot wait until we take our level 2!