Exerpted from 
Guide to Sea Kayaking Central and Northern California
Copyright 1999, The Globe Pequot Press. All rights reserved. No Part of this book may be reproduced or transmited in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording except as expressly permitted by the publisher.

TIPS FOR PADDLING IN WIND

... So what’s all this mean to a kayaker? There are a few good ways to
handle the wind. The first thing you want to do is buy a portable weather
radio. One of the best $25 investments you can make for your comfort
and safety, it broadcasts a continuous marine forecast, including wind and
swell reports, that is updated every few hours. You can check it before you
launch and periodically throughout the day. Those with Internet access
can also find excellent marine weather sources, such as “Call of the
Wind” and a NOAA forecast replete with maps, but these are not as
portable as your trusty radio.

One way to avoid wind is to “time” your paddle: Leave early in the
morning and get off the water before the wind starts blowing, or try a
short evening paddle after it has died. This is especially good advice for
beginners. Note that when whitecaps begin to form, they should act as
warning flags to novice paddlers. Another way to dodge the wind is to paddle in the lee, the
protected downwind side of points of land. On this coast that generally
means the windy side faces north and the lee faces south. Most of our
trips begin, you may notice, in the lee of points.

A popular strategy is to use the wind by paddling northward into it in
the morning, then it’ll be at your back as it picks up in the afternoon when
you get tired. More advance paddlers often run a shuttle, leaving a vehicle
at a landing site to the south and paddling with the wind all day. Running a
shuttle, however, creates logistical problems, the least of which are the time
involved and remembering to bring your keys to the landing beach (don’t
laugh it happens with embarrassing regularity), the worst of which can
include the inability to backtrack against the wind if conditions become too
rough, finding yourself committed to complete a dangerous trip.

The final strategy is to simply plan to save some energy for the
return trip, a common technique for paddling coastal rivers on which the
last mile or so back to the launch site at the mouth often involves a slog
into wind funneling upriver off the ocean. Using hills or banks as natural
windbreaks can sometimes help in these situations....
 
 

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