A Kayaking Incident in Norway

The photo is from another, great kayaking trip to Norway - the Helgeland coastal area

I do like Norway a lot, in many ways. The scenery is incredibly spectacular (well, provided you can actually see something) and the Norwegians I've met have all been friendly and helpful. It's a bit like what the US folks often - half jokingly - say about Canadians, them generally being so polite and friendly (which I also believe to be very close to the truth). Being a sea kayaking addict, I should have been kayaking in Norway much more during the years! North Atlantic is way, way Cool. In case you ever get the chance: Arctic Sea Kayak Race is just amazing and the best part is that you do not have to take part in the race :) Well, I do hope there is still time for future adventures; Norway is definitely not far from our home turf.

A couple of years ago, me and my wife had the pleasure to join some friends and paddle together in Norway. Weatherwise, it was a mixed bag - nothing unusual about that! - but it was a really great trip. However, one of our paddling day tours turned out to be a bit different in a way that resulted in me purchasing a cheap PMR radio and later a proper marine VHF handheld - see my writing about the Standard Radio HX870 here.

So, what happened? Nothing very dramatic or extremely dangerous but things could have gone south - and right there, radio comms would have been great. We were on the water, not at all very far from the shoreline, but after a while the waves got really choppy and all of a sudden I noticed that it was just me and one fellow kayaker who could see each other - the others were way out there somewhere, hidden by the waves, and possibly heading in another direction. I was doing okay, in my old but very seaworthy North Shore Calypso, but my friend wasn't and I had no idea what the deal was for my wife and the rest of the bunch.

I felt frustrated like crazy but, after a while, the rest of the party showed up and there wasn't much more to the whole thing. In the evening I did say something about what I felt; we could have got ourselves into some pretty serious business. In the end we, the whole group, never got together and discussed thoroughly what had happened and what could have happened and how to avoid something like that happening in the future. We definitely should have.

The good part is that me & wife got the radios. Money well spent for sure; no way I'll ever go kayaking without a VHF radio any more and I might even throw in a Ocean Signal PLB1 for good measure. The more features you cram into a handheld radio, the more power hungry it gets. After all, the emergency DSC capability of a VHF radio is not much use if the battery is dead.

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