Just wanted to share my recent experience.
Normally I paddle on lake Ontario near Toronto. It's a large lake that is similar to a sea. There's a couple of harbours, a good view of the downtown skyline and bunch of other identifiable landmarks. You can tell where you are just simply looking around.
Every year we rent cottages on various inner lakes in Ontario. Typically small to medium bodies of calmer and warmer water. Kids swimming off cottage docks, powerboats, jetskis, this sort of thing. You would think paddling there is generally a no brainer.
That's what I thought too and I was doing daily routine "point A to point B to point A" paddles. Until things went weird.
This lake is an irregular shaped one, about 15k at the longest, it has a fairly large island in the middle.
![balsam.png]()
So, one day I set off to what was supposed to be another routine 10k. The water was calm, I felt good and strong so I decided to circle around the island. No big deal I thought, I would probably be 20 min late for dinner, just cut short my usual after-paddle remount practice and fire off a barbecue right away.
Right.
The thing about these lakes is that they have no identifiable landmarks. It's all cottages and docks. The passages between the land masses are also barely identifiable from a distance. No beaches to land on and some parts (especially north of the island) can be completely deserted.
So I kept going around this island until I realized something wasn't quite right in regards to my position. I tried pulling up GMaps on my phone, but the case sprung a leak. This phone is completely waterproof, but in a case full of water it's next to useless. The touch precision is off, it reads the water as a finger, opens random apps and so on.
Good thing I came across some fisherman how pointed me south. I thought I was going south, but dang it, I was actually going north! I was going on the second circle around the island instead of heading home.
I that point it dawned on me that my GPS enabled VHF radio actually has a compass screen. I never used it before and didn't know if I should trust it as it's a GPS compass that only works when you move (it did work fine).
So I finally get my bearing and start barreling down in the right direction. Still with zero help from the visuals.
My wive gets worried and starts calling me repeatedly. Knowing that my phone isn't working well, I decide not to mess with it, ignore the calls and just get the heck home. But, I am still about 10k away and at this point semi-expecting a police boat to pull besides me. Well, that did not happen. Kind of. Instead, about 1k from the cottage I came across a search and rescue party consisting of a neighbour and my wive on the neighbours powerboat. It was already getting pretty dark.
Needless to say, I feel completely stupid about the whole thing. I simply didn't realize how these kind of waters cannot be navigated by sight alone. Paddling with a downtown core and a shore on one side has spoiled me.
Now, if I haven't met the fishermen, or had no GPS enabled radio, a routine 10k could have easily become 40-50k, most of it at night.
So...lesson learned. Better nav skills are in order as well as better aids. I am picking up a handheld navigator soon with the intention of keeping it on my foot strap and promising myself to better plan my paddles, especially in unfamiliar or semi-familiar places.
You don't know what you don't know.
To summarize the lessons learned:
1. You need nav aids sooner than you think. Test them and know how to use them.
2. Don't count on someone being on the receiving end of your VHF call. CH16 is next to dead in these areas and I wouldn't count on rec. boaters to have a radio and knowing what to do with it.
3. Don't count on these waters to be always calm and predictable. The conditions on different sides of the island can vary significantly. There's just no good way to tell and if you are in a tippy "grow into" ski that may be enough to spell trouble or slow you down at least. Wasn't quite the case with me, but I can see folks underestimating it.
4. Have a plan and stick to it. Don't be like me and turn a simple 10k into 27k with your wife worrying sick.
Normally I paddle on lake Ontario near Toronto. It's a large lake that is similar to a sea. There's a couple of harbours, a good view of the downtown skyline and bunch of other identifiable landmarks. You can tell where you are just simply looking around.
Every year we rent cottages on various inner lakes in Ontario. Typically small to medium bodies of calmer and warmer water. Kids swimming off cottage docks, powerboats, jetskis, this sort of thing. You would think paddling there is generally a no brainer.
That's what I thought too and I was doing daily routine "point A to point B to point A" paddles. Until things went weird.
This lake is an irregular shaped one, about 15k at the longest, it has a fairly large island in the middle.
So, one day I set off to what was supposed to be another routine 10k. The water was calm, I felt good and strong so I decided to circle around the island. No big deal I thought, I would probably be 20 min late for dinner, just cut short my usual after-paddle remount practice and fire off a barbecue right away.
Right.
The thing about these lakes is that they have no identifiable landmarks. It's all cottages and docks. The passages between the land masses are also barely identifiable from a distance. No beaches to land on and some parts (especially north of the island) can be completely deserted.
So I kept going around this island until I realized something wasn't quite right in regards to my position. I tried pulling up GMaps on my phone, but the case sprung a leak. This phone is completely waterproof, but in a case full of water it's next to useless. The touch precision is off, it reads the water as a finger, opens random apps and so on.
Good thing I came across some fisherman how pointed me south. I thought I was going south, but dang it, I was actually going north! I was going on the second circle around the island instead of heading home.
I that point it dawned on me that my GPS enabled VHF radio actually has a compass screen. I never used it before and didn't know if I should trust it as it's a GPS compass that only works when you move (it did work fine).
So I finally get my bearing and start barreling down in the right direction. Still with zero help from the visuals.
My wive gets worried and starts calling me repeatedly. Knowing that my phone isn't working well, I decide not to mess with it, ignore the calls and just get the heck home. But, I am still about 10k away and at this point semi-expecting a police boat to pull besides me. Well, that did not happen. Kind of. Instead, about 1k from the cottage I came across a search and rescue party consisting of a neighbour and my wive on the neighbours powerboat. It was already getting pretty dark.
Needless to say, I feel completely stupid about the whole thing. I simply didn't realize how these kind of waters cannot be navigated by sight alone. Paddling with a downtown core and a shore on one side has spoiled me.
Now, if I haven't met the fishermen, or had no GPS enabled radio, a routine 10k could have easily become 40-50k, most of it at night.
So...lesson learned. Better nav skills are in order as well as better aids. I am picking up a handheld navigator soon with the intention of keeping it on my foot strap and promising myself to better plan my paddles, especially in unfamiliar or semi-familiar places.
You don't know what you don't know.
To summarize the lessons learned:
1. You need nav aids sooner than you think. Test them and know how to use them.
2. Don't count on someone being on the receiving end of your VHF call. CH16 is next to dead in these areas and I wouldn't count on rec. boaters to have a radio and knowing what to do with it.
3. Don't count on these waters to be always calm and predictable. The conditions on different sides of the island can vary significantly. There's just no good way to tell and if you are in a tippy "grow into" ski that may be enough to spell trouble or slow you down at least. Wasn't quite the case with me, but I can see folks underestimating it.
4. Have a plan and stick to it. Don't be like me and turn a simple 10k into 27k with your wife worrying sick.