Planning trips is something of a sickness I have. Sad to say, but the fact is that I plan way, way more trips than I actually do. Whether it's a day trip on the weekend or an overnighter somewhere along the coast it's still the case that finding time to go is always difficult. Still, plan I do.
Over the years the tools I've used for planning have varied. As little as a few years ago getting (real) charts on a computer screen was something of a pain. And getting tide and current information on the same chart was something I had a really hard time finding. These days of course there are all kinds of choices, at least in the U.S., for getting NOAA chart and Google maps mashups. The final frontier was a decent tool (set) for my smart (read "i")Phone. I have I don't know how many tide and weather apps, current apps, ship finders, and so forth. Just a bunch of disparate tools that I can potentially use to plan in quite fine detail some outing that probably won't happen. But nothing cohesive, no "one app to bind them all".
The smart/iPhone situation has changed though. I happened to spend some time with Ben Lawry while he was at the GGSKS. In addition to being a pretty damned fine coach Ben has the (I say) admirable quality of being something of a gadget geek. He has an iPad and a smart (not "i") phone and turned me on to an app from a company called Navionics. For $10.00 it has downloadable charts that auto stitch, has tide and current info on the chart, a community layer (they call it) where it looks like you can add your own icons to the chart and share them, and a entirely livable UI. You can plan and sport routes and it will create exportable tracks using the GPS.
The number of tide and current stations is a bit lacking, the charts are a little jagged edged at large scales and a little cluttered at small scales. I wouldn't want to plan a serious multiday with it and I guess Navionics wouldn't either since it has a big green "Not for Navigation" type warning when the program starts, but for those "hey, what should I do this weekend" questions, or over beer what abouts, it's totally reasonable. Hell, I thought it was worth $10 just to not play Angry Birds or whatever quite so much. Getting something I can plausibly pre-plan a trip with on my ("i")Phone is gravy.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
GGSKS
It has been just a helluva long time since I've posted anything here. I've been in a bit of a kayaking funk for quite a while so I just really didn't feel like I had much to say. Not that feeling like having something to say is the same as actually having something to say, but I digress.
I think one of the things that most got me back to the path of enjoyment was the Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium (GGSKS for the cool kids). To be honest I wasn't even going to go this, the fourth, year. I'd been to the first three and I had a really good time the first two years but last year was just a bummer for me. The reasons why probably don't matter much, even if I could say what they were exactly.
A friend of mine, Leon (of Leon and Shawna fame), cajoled me into going though. Kind of a gotta support the team thing, an argument that I'm pretty susceptible to. I think he knows that. Anyway I'm really happy he made the effort, I think this was the best GGSKS so far, at least as far as I'm concerned.
I didn't stay at the hostel this time, and I think that was a great idea. From my perspective the hostel is the best and worst part of the symposium structure. The best part is that it's where most of the attendees and coaches stay so it's just a bubbling cauldron of kayaking. The worst part is that, for me, it's hard to get a good nights sleep there. So I ended up staying in a hotel just a couple of minutes up the road. It was way more expensive than the hostel to be sure but it was entirely worth it.
Another good choice I think i made was how I managed my schedule. There's just a shit load of really great classes offered. But the fact is the most exciting are also the most exhausting. So I sort of did easyish, hard, easy. Day one was an edge control class with a possibility of getting into some conditions to work on that stuff in the realer world. Day two was an incident management class which I anticipated would be strenuous (and it pretty much was) and the last day was a coastal journey that I had some confidence wouldn't be coastal due to conditions and so would be pretty easy (and that's what happened). In previous symposiums by the last day I'd be completely knackered and that just sucks. Not this year, and that was really great.
So, more or less, those were the things I did to make the GGSKS a great time but the organizers seem to have things pretty well dialed now and that totally helped. The coaches were, by all accounts, exemplary. And for the first time classes had an attendee limit. Heretofore one could sign up for a class and have 25 people in it (happened to me once). Sometimes it worked out fine (happened to me once) sometimes not but limiting the class size made that a moot concern. One of the things I consider when picking a class is the coach(es) so knowing that when I sign up for a class with XYZ coach I'm going to have XYZ coach teaching is nothing but win.
Anyway, yah, I had a great time, I'm energized about padding again, planning trips and such, met some hella cool new people and spent time with old friends. Hard to beat.
I think one of the things that most got me back to the path of enjoyment was the Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium (GGSKS for the cool kids). To be honest I wasn't even going to go this, the fourth, year. I'd been to the first three and I had a really good time the first two years but last year was just a bummer for me. The reasons why probably don't matter much, even if I could say what they were exactly.
A friend of mine, Leon (of Leon and Shawna fame), cajoled me into going though. Kind of a gotta support the team thing, an argument that I'm pretty susceptible to. I think he knows that. Anyway I'm really happy he made the effort, I think this was the best GGSKS so far, at least as far as I'm concerned.
I didn't stay at the hostel this time, and I think that was a great idea. From my perspective the hostel is the best and worst part of the symposium structure. The best part is that it's where most of the attendees and coaches stay so it's just a bubbling cauldron of kayaking. The worst part is that, for me, it's hard to get a good nights sleep there. So I ended up staying in a hotel just a couple of minutes up the road. It was way more expensive than the hostel to be sure but it was entirely worth it.
Another good choice I think i made was how I managed my schedule. There's just a shit load of really great classes offered. But the fact is the most exciting are also the most exhausting. So I sort of did easyish, hard, easy. Day one was an edge control class with a possibility of getting into some conditions to work on that stuff in the realer world. Day two was an incident management class which I anticipated would be strenuous (and it pretty much was) and the last day was a coastal journey that I had some confidence wouldn't be coastal due to conditions and so would be pretty easy (and that's what happened). In previous symposiums by the last day I'd be completely knackered and that just sucks. Not this year, and that was really great.
So, more or less, those were the things I did to make the GGSKS a great time but the organizers seem to have things pretty well dialed now and that totally helped. The coaches were, by all accounts, exemplary. And for the first time classes had an attendee limit. Heretofore one could sign up for a class and have 25 people in it (happened to me once). Sometimes it worked out fine (happened to me once) sometimes not but limiting the class size made that a moot concern. One of the things I consider when picking a class is the coach(es) so knowing that when I sign up for a class with XYZ coach I'm going to have XYZ coach teaching is nothing but win.
Anyway, yah, I had a great time, I'm energized about padding again, planning trips and such, met some hella cool new people and spent time with old friends. Hard to beat.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)