"jeffh129" wrote in message
om...
Ok, here is probably the dumbest "newbie" question of the year.
Yesterday I purchased a new Sundance 120 after three test paddles.
However each time I test paddled the yak, there was an employee there
to help me enter and exit the yak next to a pier.

So....now I have it home and am anxious to take it out soon. I assume
I won't be doing the pier entry and exit as I will be alone. How do I
get in and out of the darn thing? Do I float it out into a foot or so
of water? Then what? Same thing on exiting. How do I actually get in
and out? ( I TOLD you this would be dumb)

....stuff deleted

Getting in and out quickly is important. I will take minor issue with
another post on the subject below, but there are some things that need to be
addressed here. The first are the prevailing conditions. Surf, wind, waves,
current, and soup (white foamy water that is left after waves break further
out) all add to the challenge. For most conditions, the following procedures
can be applied with only minor modifications.

Put the bow of the boat into the water with the rear still on shore.
1) Straddle the rear of the boat and sit on the back deck
2) Place your paddle behind you so that it lays on the back deck and extends
to the side of the boat you prefer to lean toward (for me, I have to enter
right leg first due to knee injuries, so I lean on that side). The paddle
will form an outrigger for the boat with one blade essentially attached to
the boat by your weight, the other braced against the ground. This is a
stable and strong position and it works even if you are in a semi-floating
condition.
3) Lean on the paddle to choice side and insert legs, one at a time
4) Attach spray skirt
5) Shift paddle to position across the cockpit (or to paddling position)
6) Lean forward and thrust your hips forward and torso back (strongly) to
move boat out into deeper water until it floats

In some conditions, however, this isn't very easy. Dumping surf (narrow surf
zones on steep beaches where the waves build up and crash in just a few
feet), for example, is highly unforgiving. If you cannot find a better entry
point and must cope with the surf, you will need to put more of the boat on
land, perhaps all of it. It can be very tiring getting launched using hip
thrusts alone and you may wish to put hands down on the ground and push up
with the hip thrusts. There is more to exiting dumping surf, but I think we
can safely assume you aren't yet ready for that.

In calmer conditions, you can use the procedure the other poster described
below, but with the following caveats:
You do not need to be parallel to the shore. In fact, I strongly recommend
against it unless there is a steep dropoff and no surf. Starting from shore
breached to the surf is not going to work very well. You may have to use
this method in some lakes and rivers, but in surf, you are better off
anchored to shore. Note also that without the spray skirt attached, it will
be difficult to impossible to do this quickly enough to avoid flooding by
surf. In soup, there will be times where you can also do this, but I still
believe it is safer to be pointing in the direction you intend to go.
Conditions will be the determining factor as to how you enter. See my story
below the recommendation of the other poster.

Rick

From other poster...
Here a better way.

Put the kayak in the water parallel to shore so that it is just floating.
Stand next to the boat on shore facing toward the bow. Take your paddle and
put it behind you perpendicular to the kayak. Lay the paddleshaft on the
boat so that the shaft is just behind the cockpit rim with the water side
paddle blade just beyond the waterside edge of the kayak. Most of the
paddle will be towards shore. Turn the shore side paddle blade so that it
is facing up. Reach down with your water side hand and grasp the
paddleshaft and cockpit rim such that your fingers are in the cockpit and
your thumb wrapped around the paddle shaft. As you squat down put your
other hand on the paddle shaft midway between the kayak and the shore side
blade. Now, keeping slightly more weight towards shore you can sit down
next to your water side hand at the rear of the cockpit. Keeping your
weight shifted slightly toward shore swing your water side leg into the boat
then your other leg (don't take your hands of the paddle yet). As long as
you're leaning slightly toward shore and you've got your hands on the paddle
in the positions indicated you've got an outrigger that will keep you from
capsizing towards shore and since you're leaning towards shore you won't
capsize the other direction. With practice you'll be able to do this fairly
quickly with getting your feet wet.

My Story:

I once, for example, had to exit the surf zone backward. This was not quite
what I planned, but it worked. We were on a beach where a large rock
(Pacific Grove) created a sheltered beach area on a day with 6-8 foot surf
conditions. Normally, I would have launched at another location, but this
beach was protected and allowed us to get into deep water behind the rock
and enter the surf zone at a 45 degree angle. A slight right rudder at the
point where you exited the shelter of the rock would put you bow on to the
next steep swells, just beyond the breaking point. Not very challenging,
just requiring a bit of awareness. I launched my buddy, used the paddle to
brace myself into the boat, attached the spray skirt, and a huge wave, a
good 4 feet taller than any of the previous ones, enveloped the rock as I
did. Water cascaded down the rock, flooded the beach, and a huge current
swept along the shore, grabbing the tail of my boat and spinning it. The bow
caught shallow water and sand, so the boat spun around in a complete 180.
Now, I was now nose to the beach with no view of the water. "Humm," the
brain says, "this isn't good."

I don't know about others, but my brain runs to the sarcastic and answered
itself with, "duh, sherlock, now what you gonna do?" Since I was launched,
buttoned up, and had no idea what the next wave would be like, I wanted to
get out of there quickly. My bow was still on shore, so I had to start
backward, and do a 180 in the surf zone in order to get my bow pointed in
the right direction. Nope, not for me. I paddled backward toward the large
rock, hit the deep water at the base, used a port (left) low brace in time
to catch the next wave on my stern, and continued out into deep water,
backward. I was now into the swell and able to turn around. Max, who was
wondering what happened when the big wave hit asked me why I came out
backward. I just said, "I read you can do this and I wanted to practice it."
He refused to believe me, for some reason, and I had to explain the whole
story.

The rest of the day was spent chasing down grey whales on their annual
migration south, with minimal luck. It wasn't until we quit and returned to
shore that the whales came close, really close. One approached shore at the
point next to the rock where I'd had to rudder backward into the surf, not
more than 30 feet away. Why, I can't comprehend, but it was something to
see.