Dan Foster

I can't join you all tomorrow, but I'll be wearing bunny ears in solidarity. Here's a custom chart of your paddling locations. NSPN Chart Great Misery and Manchester Bay.pdf

Since this is the first club paddle of the year for most of us, it's a good time to re-read the NSPN liability waiver before you sign a soggy version of it tomorrow. Have a great paddle - looking forward to photos!

Free / Pass it Forward:

Books: The Complete Book of Sea Kayaking by Derek Hutchinson. A Women's Guide to Sea Kayaking.

DVDs: This is the Sea #5, Kayaking the Aleutians

Magazines: 20 issues of Ocean Paddler

Stuff To Borrow (30 days):

Books on navigation: Fundamentals of Kayak Navigation, Simple Kayak Navigation, NOAA Chart #1 (chart symbols), Emergency Navigation by Burch, The Lost Art of Finding our Way by John Huth

Guidebooks: [lots of books on flatwater kayaking and canoeing in New England, bike paths, day hikes in MA...], Connecticut River boating guide, Acadia National Park.

Trip Leadership: AMC Guide to Outdoor Leadership, AMC Mountain Leadership School handbook

Astronomy: Planisphere (star finder). Hoping to have a sextant to lend at some point.

Try My Gear: (in-person demos on Walden Pond, Stow area rivers, or on an NSPN paddle)

Wilderness Systems Tempest 170

Necky Chatham 16

2-pc Werner Ikelos 215 paddle

2-pc Werner Shuna 215 paddle

Gearlab AKIAK (shoulderless) paddle

Tarptent Protrail ultra-light backpacking tent (to view and discuss pros and cons)

I have an extra stand-up paddleboard if you'd like to give it a try during a Walden session.

I have a Garmin inReach Explorer+ GPS with satellite messaging for my own solo adventures. Contact me with your trip plans and dates if you're interested in borrowing it for an expedition or to talk about pros and cons of PLBs.

Skills and Services:

I can help you create custom charts with magnetic north lines for your NSPN trips.

I'm always happy to help with navigation or map and compass skills.

Local knowledge:

Assabet, Sudbury, Concord, Nashua rivers. Walden pond area. Boston Harbor Islands.

Since there are a few newer paddlers interested who may not be familiar with NSPN traditions: PPPO means "post-paddle pig-out", a.k.a. "going to a restaurant". "slog" and "Misery" pretty much mean what they sound like.

Since this is an early-season paddle, we pay special attention to the wind speed and direction to try to find a sheltered location to paddle. We probably won't pick a destination until we get a few days closer to the event, so we've got a forecast we can trust. You can start monitoring the NOAA marine forecast for the Marblehead/Salem Sound area to get a sense of what might be going on this weekend:

https://marine.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-70.84938811836764&lat=42.54080539623243

As of this morning, the long range forecast is:

The event is free. You'll need a chart of either Casco Bay or Marblehead, and if you don't have one, there may be a small fee to have one printed for you. (Details on that coming later in April)

Sue, I typically take a NOAA chart and crop and scale it so that the area we tend to paddle in ends up in a 24"x36" or 36"x48" PDF map that can be printed at Staples.

I'll be bringing Waterproof Charts #101E - Casco Bay for my personal Jewell planning, and using whatever custom paper map gets created for my Marblehead planning, since I don't own a waterproof chart of that area. Over the next year I intend to create PDF charts of many of our favorite paddling locations as a club resource, and I hope others will help document some of our go-to paddles (listing details about parking, known hazards, etc), so that a new trip organizer could just pick NSPN trip #11 - Riverhead Beach to Great Misery, and have everything they needed to post the trip after checking the weather and tides.

I'll post PDFs of the Casco Bay and Marblehead charts later this month.

Bill, if there's interest, I will provide large paper charts that you can draw on to your heart's content, which cost me about $5 per chart at Staples.

Some of the things we'll be adding, like magnetic north lines, highlighting shipping channels, launches, and MITA sites, are things that I WOULD recommend you add in permanent marker to ALL of your charts.

I reserved the REI community room for the Saturday afternoon prior to the Jewell trip, for a workshop on chart prep and trip planning using the upcoming Jewell trip as our focus. There's an option to grab dinner afterwards and talk about plans for Jewell and socialize. This would be an ideal opportunity for anyone who hasn't paddled to Jewell before, or hasn't been as involved in the navigation or trip planning aspects of the weekend, to get together with their fellow paddlers prior to the trip and make plans and answer questions. Hope to see you all there.

Jane, if this proves useful, I'll definitely schedule a similar event immediately preceding the MDI/Acadia trip in September, and maybe a second one right before the Solstice paddle.

Two of NSPN's most popular annual trips are the Jewell Island (Casco Bay) camping trip in mid-May, and the Solstice paddle out of Marblehead in late June. Each location offers multiple destinations and activities, so there's always a trip option depending on your skill level, preferences for distance, and that day's tide and wind direction.

Having a well-prepared nautical chart and an equally well-prepared plan for your trip are key skills every sea kayaker should develop. These two locations in particular (Casco Bay and Marblehead) are full of destinations that NSPN paddlers return to over and over again, and it makes sense to invest some time getting to know them and getting them set up to suit your paddling needs. For example, many of this year's Wednesday lunch paddles will be focusing on Marblehead and Salem Sound.

Join us at REI in Reading on Saturday, May 11, from 2-6PM (with social dinner at a restaurant or a nearby park to follow) for an interactive, hands-on afternoon of chart prep, chart reading skills, and planning some actual trips based on the upcoming Jewell and Solstice paddles. If you're attending the Jewell camping trip, you and your fellow paddlers can go over the exact route you'll take to Jewell the following week, and sketch out a few proposals for possible excursions from the island. If you're not going to Jewell, you can work on plans for a paddle in Casco Bay or out of Marblehead, or simply go through the planning process to learn more about these two paddling destinations.

Paddlers at every level are invited to attend, and newer members are especially welcome. Even if you never intend to lead or navigate on an NSPN trip, you'll come away with a marked-up chart that you can follow along with, and you'll get a better understanding of the factors that go into choosing a particular route on any given day. More experienced navigators are invited to help with the chart prep work, to contribute to the development of route plans based on weather and tide, and to help answer questions about the upcoming paddles.

You are required to bring: pen, paper, and a chart of Casco Bay and/or a chart of Marblehead and Salem Sound. (Contact me at least a week before the workshop if you need help getting a chart)

Bring the following optional goodies if you have them:

 - various colored pens, pencils, highlighters

 - something with a long, straight edge for drawing straight magnetic north lines on your chart. (ruler, yardstick, scrap aluminum bar, etc)

 - something to measure angles (protractor, hiking compass, small craft nav aid)

 - something to measure lengths/distances (string, edge of paper, dental floss...)

 - MITA guidebook (for locating Casco Bay destinations) or guidebooks covering Casco Bay or Salem Sound/Marblehead area.

 - notebook/loose paper for developing trip plans.

 - your ideas. Where would YOU like to go?

There will be some homework (initial map prep you can do at home) so we can dive into chart reading, final chart prep, and trip planning.

You can click the Attending button on the Calendar posting to let others know you'll be there, but I'd also very much appreciate an RSVP reply in the Trips forum posting with the following info: - Which chart will you bring (or need)?

 - Are you going to Jewell this year? (if so, where are you launching from and on what day?)

 - Are you thinking about going to the Solstice paddle in late June, or participating in Joe and Bob's Wednesday lunch paddles in and around Salem Sound?

 - Joining us afterwards for dinner and more social trip planning? (prefer outdoors or restaurant?)

RSVP in reply below with answers so I know how much Jewell vs Marblehead emphasis to provide. RSVP on  calendar posting if you want to let others know you're going.

Have you ever missed out on an NSPN trip because by the time you noticed it on the NSPN forum, it was already full? Do you wish there was a way to get an email every time a new trip was announced? Here's how to set things up so you'll never miss out on another NSPN trip again.

How to Follow the Trips / NSPN Events forum

Go to this page, and click on the Follow button:

https://www.nspn.org/forums/forum/103-trips-nspn-events/

On desktop and laptop computers, the follow button is a white button in the upper right corner of the page, and when you hover over it, it says Follow this content.

On mobile phones, the follow button is at the very bottom of the page. 

Once you click on the Follow button, you'll be asked how you want to be notified about new content:

• [X] A notification when new content is posted
• [   ] One email per day with all new content from that day
• [   ] One email per week with all new content from that week
• [   ] Do not send me notifications
•  

If you don't want to miss out on trips, select the first option!

Now, when you go to the Trips forum, you'll see the button has changed to say Following. You can click on it to change your notification preferences, and you can click the number off to the right to see the other people who are following that content as well. (Useful if your friend complains they never hear about trips - you can check if they have followed these instructions.)

Following Additional Content

You can follow other things besides new trips! You can follow the Trip Reports forum. You can follow the Calendar to see when new things are added. You can follow individual forum posts to keep tabs on a subject that interests you, or a discussion of a particular event you want to attend. Just look for the Follow button, and click it to get email notifications.

Managing Your Followed Content

You can see exactly what content (forums, posts, etc.) you've followed by clicking Manage Followed Content under your profile:

https://www.nspn.org/forum/followed/?type=forums_forum&change_section=1

Micro-Manage Your Notification Settings

You can go to this page to tweak all sorts of settings about how you want to be notified when various things happen, like someone quotes something you said in a subsequent comment.

https://www.nspn.org/forum/notifications/options/

You really don't need to adjust anything on this settings page unless there's a specific type of notification you're sick of receiving. Perhaps the most important setting is the first one - make sure you're subscribed to get the NSPN newsletter - we'll be using this more frequently in the future to let you know in advance about major NSPN events like parties, pool sessions, and big club trips.

Please note that there is a global setting on this page for your followed content notifications. It is not a global "follow everything" button. Making a change here DOES NOT subscribe you to notifications about new content or new trips until you actually start following some content! 

Method to use for content I follow automatically (note the "for content I follow" part!)

• [X] A notification when new content is posted
• [   ] One email per day with all new content from that day
• [   ] One email per week with all new content from that week
• [   ] Do not send me notifications

Now that you've followed the Trips forum, you'll get an email notification every time a new trip is posted, and you'll have a leg up on getting a spot on that really popular trip you've always wanted to attend. As a reward for reading all of this, here's one last tip you can use to get the most out of the NSPN forums:

Bookmark the Unread Content page

Add this page as a bookmark in your Web browser:

https://www.nspn.org/forum/discover/unread/

Get in the habit of visiting the Unread Content page first, which will show you all of the new posts and replies on the forum that you haven't read yet. Read any of the new content that interests you, and if the remaining stuff isn't of interest (a for-sale item that you don't need, for example), click Mark Site Read and you won't see it again. Mark Site Read is in the upper right corner for desktops and laptops, and on mobile phones it is a menu item on the popup menu in the upper right corner.

If you need help with any of this, bring your laptop or mobile phone to an NSPN event, and someone should be able to help walk you through the process, following the instructions above.

One thing I keep hearing over and over in our club is that our multi-day camping trips are really popular, to the point where they sometimes fill on the day that they are posted. The solution is clear - offer more camping trips, and encourage more club members to organize more camping trips.

I got my start organizing the Squam trip when another club trip passed the reins to me, which allowed them to go on to start some additional trips. I'm perfectly happy continuing to organize the annual fall Squam Lake trip, but I realize that this lake-based trip is a perfect opportunity for someone else to get comfortable with organizing a camping trip without some of the complexities that come with an ocean trip. So, if anyone out there has been thinking about leading trips but isn't sure they're ready to take the plunge, I'll make the following offer: you'll get a guaranteed spot on this year's Squam trip (this trip is one that tends to fill almost immediately) and we'll work together on the rest of the organizational details for the 2019 trip (the camping site is already reserved, so this really just involves sending out a group email, and proposing some activities based on the weather we get). You'll take the reins in 2020, and I'll be available for help (and will probably attend). I'll commit to launching a new club camping trip in 2020.

Reply here or send me a Private Message if you're interested. There's been talk about starting a second Squam trip earlier in the season, so if more than one person is interested, we can work together and offer multiple lake camping trips.

I'm out of town for this week's orienteering event, but I'm a member of NEOC and try to attend a few O meets each spring. I'd be happy to meet up at an event with anyone looking to give it a try. It's a great way to sharpen your awareness of the terrain around you, and despite what you might think, you don't really need any compass skills beyond knowing which end of the needle is painted red. It's 99% matching ground features to the map, and the compass needle is just there to help you point the map in the right direction.

Andy, the CG website encourages boaters to limit DSC tests to once per week. I just sent a DSC radio test using Bill's instructions, but given that I'm an hour inland, I did not expect or receive a reply. It's less than a one second transmission, and DSC means it's only to be heard by the party you're calling. I think the prohibition on marine radio use on land is to keep people from using them like walkie-talkies and tying up an entire marine VHF channel.

Gary, the potential scenario that worries me is: can a paddler or a swimmer with a VHF in 4' seas both transmit and receive understandable information to a potential rescuer in a lobster boat 1 mile distant. I personally believe that VHF works great for boat-to-boat communications when both antennae have a line-of-sight path above the water, but that kayakers and swimmers are so close to the surface that wave crests and swell may attenuate our transmissions and render them useless in the scenarios where we'd actually need them.

Has anyone ever tested VHF communications between two widely-separated pods in bigger seas, where you don't have continuous visual line-of-sight to the other party?

Has anyone tried this? I'd try it now if I was within range of the coast. (Click the link to see the right channel to use for your area: 27 for Boston and Portsmouth, 26 for MA north shore.)

https://www.seatow.com/boating-safety/automated-radio-checks

It’s simple to use:

1. Automated Radio Check Service uses one of VHF Channels 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 84. Simply tune your radio to the proper channel for your community.
2. Conduct a radio check as you normally would.
3. Upon releasing the mic, the system will replay your transmission, letting you hear how you sound.

Yeah, I would amend "don't take risks that you are not prepared to take without the device" to "include the possibility of device failure in your overall risk assessment". I'm willing to take on SOME more risk when I'm carrying a safety device, even if I feel it has a non-zero chance of failure. Rolls, radios, and rescue beacons are all examples of things that I don't trust 100%, but that let me paddle further than I would if I didn't have them at all.

Personally, I think many of us over-estimate the reliability of our handheld VHF radios to get a message to the Coast Guard in a life-or-death kayaking incident, and under-estimate the reliability of GPS, PLBs, and other modern "gadgets". I have never seen a paddler ask for a radio check from CG or a far-off boater. Instead, we assume that because we can hear the radio of the guy 30 feet from us, we've got reliable safety comms.

I'm more confident in the reliability of my inReach, because I can audit its performance. On the beach, I press the test button, which sends a test-SOS message to any satellites overhead and waits for a test-received message back with my device's registration number in the payload, which tests the exact path a real SOS message would take. At all times, the unit blinks a red light at me if it doesn't have a connection to the satellite network, indicating that I've got it oriented poorly or shielded somehow. When I choose to send an outgoing message, it blinks until the message is successfully sent, and beeps for confirmation. When I get home, I can view the map of tracking points it sent, and if they aren't evenly spaced out at 10 minute intervals, or stray from my known path travelled, I would know that I didn't have reliable 2-way communication at particular points on my trip. My own personal auditing of paddles with the device near the top of my day hatch or in the top of a backpack gives me 99% confidence that it will work as described if I remember to charge it and turn it on.

Recent discussion about viewing NH stone walls on LIDAR - there are links and instructions on the second page of the discussion:

https://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?60206-New-Hampshire-Stone-Wall-Project

I carry a Garmin inReach on solo and group outings in the woods and on water. I was present at an incident on land a while back that required outside assistance, and was moments away from pressing the SOS button when we managed to get a cell connection to 911. I was very thankful for the voice connection to 911, as we were very quickly able to communicate what we needed. Being on land with the inReach, we could have exchanged short text messages to communicate the assistance needed. Had the same incident happened on rough water where we couldn't exchange messages over the inReach, or with only a PLB available, the responding agency would have had no choice but to send the full response team, since they wouldn't know the nature of the emergency.

One further benefit of an electronic device that sends lat/lon with the distress signal: Had we used the inReach, it may have sped up "where are you located?" part of the response. The first thing 911 wants to know is: "police, fire, or medical", and the second is the address and town you are in, so they can patch in the proper responders. On the ocean, it's fairly easy - Coast Guard will respond, but inland you should know what township your particular patch of woods lies in. In this particular instance my phone wasn't sending lat/lon and the cell tower I connected through was not in the same town that I was in. So even though I could describe precisely where we were, the 911 operator had to guess at the town, and the first agency they patched in immediately told us to call their neighbors.

Until help arrived, I spent the rest of the time on the line with 911 relaying vital signs (quality and rate of pulse and respiration), and relaying any changes in the patient's condition. We were fortunate to have some very skilled individuals handling patient care, and another member of the group ran back and forth from the patient to the spot where we could get cell service. The first responders arrived on scene, and the incident had a happy ending.

Having multiple communications options definitely helped that day. I'd certainly recommend carrying something like a PLB, EPIRB, or a commercial option like Spot or inReach as a backup to radios or cell phones.

WHEN: Thursday, April 4th, 5:30 to 7:30 pm

WHERE: Newbury Kayak & Canoe, 291 High Rd, Newbury, MA 01951

I really enjoyed the photos and your trip report from the Boundary Waters.

Another vote for Lost in the Wild, and while we're discussing BWCA/Quetico books, I'll put in a plug for my wife's uncle's new novel, set in Quetico. Find it in the canoeing-action-romance-coming-of-age section of your favorite bookstore, or on Amazon at:

Alone on the Shield : https://www.amazon.com/Alone-Shield-Novel-Kirk-Landers/dp/1613739915/

You might look at the [boat traffic] Density Map layer on Marinetraffic.com to get an idea of how the traffic fans out and if there are any places you can hide "mid-stream"

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-70.9/centery:42.4/zoom:11

You might also have someone checking AIS data on the water to see if any really big ships are headed through the channel.

Glad to hear you got out (and back)! You're the king of tides until someone else ventures out above 11.5 feet.

Just as an example of how this data could be displayed in a useful form, here's a website that lets you drag a slider to see the currents ebb and flow around Puget Sound. Move the map a little to the north and look at the current in Deception Pass!

http://www.deepzoom.com

He plots the tide and current stations for our area, but the current slider doesn't work here. I would love to see this visualization for the Piscataqua.

One modification that might help - when you're pushing up on the bow to lift the boat, hold your kayak paddle in the middle of the shaft with the other hand, after letting it float to the surface with the blades as flat on the water as possible, and push down hard on the paddle while pushing up on the boat. Pushing down on the paddle helps keep your body from submerging and gets a bit more of the boat out of the water. Probably harder to do with a canoe paddle, but you'll still get some resistance against the water if you choke up on the throat of the paddle.