Make Your Mark

Spring 2009

A few minutes of planning before a trip can take the guesswork out of on-the-fly decisions

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

by Adam Bolonsky

Chart reading takes practice. One way to speed up the process is to get in the habit of marking up your charts before you paddle new areas. If you also take a few minutes to waterproof your charts (an easy task) and make them portable, you can continue to mark up your charts while you’re on the water.

Marking up charts before you paddle a new area is also an excellent way to make your trip safer, easier and more enjoyable.

First, look over the contours of the coastline shown on your chart. Look for low areas, preferably those without cliffs or large boulders, that might make potential safe landing areas, or possibly camps (to read shoreline features, see the Fall 2008 navigation feature, available online at wavelengthmagazine.com). The safest shoreline contours are those that indicate beaches, cobble strands, protected coves and ledges. The best bailouts are those close to roads so that you can hitchhike or take public transit back to the put-in – or even call a cab if need be. Mark these areas on your chart, as it is much more difficult, once on the water, to look for places to land and wait out bad weather, deal with equipment failure or regroup after big mishaps such as capsizes.

In short, mark up your chart with notes: where to camp, where you can find safe havens. Doing so will make landing in an emergency faster and easier. To make actually finding those areas easier once you’re on water, take care to mark the relevant landmarks, shown on the chart, that lie near those areas. If your chart shows a water tower or stand of radio antennas, for example, on a hill near an area where the coastline is low, circle them.

Marking up charts involves about a half a dozen other intuitive steps.

Connect your A to B points with thick bold strokes. You can draw your lines on a waterproofed chart with a grease pencil or colored felt-tip marker.

Your A to B points might be your put-in to your first landmark (that island you want to look at, for instance), and the next place you plan to make landfall – the cove tucked away inside that bold headland, for example.

Next, along the easy-to-see lines connecting your A and B points, write, in clear handwriting, the compass heading. Make sure the notation is legible, so you can read it from the foredeck and readily transfer the heading to your foredeck compass once you’re on the water.

Next, somewhere along the line that connects your A to your B point and the compass heading between them, add in the backbearing, or the compass course you’ll need to follow in case you need to turn back from B to A.

Add in also a couple of letters to remind you of what direction the compass heading represents. SW, for example, for southwest, if the heading is in the 240 range, E if the heading is in the 90 range, and so on.

Using simple abbreviations like E, W, S, N, etc., to remind you of your direction does much to encourage heads-up navigation. Rather than staring at your compass to stay on course, you navigate along basic points of the compass by making a mental note of where north is in the area (by picking out a landmark) then making a mental and visual note of the other three points of the compass: east, west, south, to keep yourself oriented. You then navigate by these landmarks primarily, glancing down at your compass from time to time to be sure that you are on course.

Encouraging heads-up navigation is a worthy notion. With heads-up navigation, you spend more time looking at your surroundings and less time staring at the compass or GPS. Not only do you get to enjoy your surroundings more, you’re more aware of other boats, changes in the weather, what your paddling companions are up to, etc. To make heads-up navigation easier, make bold notations on your chart that you can read with a glance.

Note along the A to B line where you expect to encounter tidal currents, shipping lanes or ferry traffic. If ferries are a concern, consider making a note of their schedules.

Needless to say, some passages from A to B are more complex than others: the fast tidal waters of British Columbia, Alaska and Long Island Sound, for example, or Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds off Cape Cod, or off the Elizabeth Island archipelago of Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. Keep in mind that tidal velocity can be either an asset or a difficulty; consider marking the optimal time to make a tidal crossing, and at what time to avoid the area.

Consider making note of how long it should take you to paddle between A to B. Including notes for the time and distance between A and B is useful in areas prone to fog, haze and limited visibility – especially if B is a small island in the middle of nowhere. In short, making note of how long it should take you to reach B gives you an idea of how soon you should begin to look for B, and how soon you should regroup and reconsider why you haven’t attained it yet.

To estimate how long it should take you to paddle between the two points, use a handy rule of thumb: if you’re a paddler with an efficient forward stroke, you can probably paddle a nautical mile in somewhere around 15 to 20 minutes, give or take.

Marking up charts also serves another purpose: in addition to providing a reference you can glance at from the cockpit, marking up a chart means that you carefully read your chart before you left. You know where to land in an emergency; you know where to portage to avoid hazards; you know where landings are likely to be dangerous if not impossible.

Adam Bolonsky is a kayak fishing guide and fitness expert based near Gloucester, Massachusetts.