Course Life
Patagonia Kayaking Course

Sample Day

Your alarm goes off at 6 AM, just before sunrise. You gently nudge your tentmate (after all, it is her turn to cook breakfast) to get her out of bed. After pulling on her boots, your tentmate leaves, and you begin the process of packing up the tent. 15 minutes later, a shout of “Hey, breakfast is up!” prompts you out into the cool air. As you sip your coffee and eat your pancakes, the sun creeps up over the mountain tops, casting a beautiful pink glow across the sky. After washing up, it’s time to battle against your kayak, getting ready for a day on the sea. By 8, everyone is ready to leave, but before you pull off your warm layer, your guide, Kate, calls the group together to review the plan for the day. Kate goes over the route, 14 miles of paddling, with a serious crossing of a large fjord around midday.

With the plan reviewed, it’s time to depart. The day has started a bit windy and the seas are rolling a bit, a perfect opportunity to practice the braces you learned yesterday. After a few hours of paddling, you pull up on a beach and stop for a break and pull out your precious dog biscuit, a delicious slice of chocolatey, cinnamony, heaven, which also happens to be a great energy bar.

As the day continues, the weather dies down a bit and the group decides to attempt to cross the mouth of the fjord. For an hour you paddle extra hard, exposed to the open sea, land not seeming to get any closer. Suddenly, a pod of dolphins surfaces 5 m from your boat and you can’t help but smile. Finally, you arrive on the other side, quite ready to make camp. It’s your turn to cook dinner, pizza, before making a nice bottle of tea. After dinner, Kate calls everyone over for a debriefing of the day and a short class on reading a chart before everyone heads off to bed. While you’re tired, you know that tomorrow will be even better.

Sample Week

Picking you up early from your hostel, the first few days of the school are spent at the Extremely Patagonia Base camp in the hills above Coyhaique, Chile. Here, in the heart of Patagonia, we will do a trip briefing, plan and cover many basic kayaking and camping skills to make sure everyone is on the same footing. Our other big task is to plan our rations, and then weigh out and pack all the food for the expedition. We will carry all of our food with us for the duration of the expedition, making us self sufficient.

Then we pack up and head south towards the stunning Patagonian Ice Cap, the third largest ice cap in the world. Once on the water, we will do a number of classes so that everyone is comfortable with the basic set of stokes which we will need on the expedition. We will also do classes in self and group rescue and begin to build our safety and judgment skills. Half the fun of this training is wet exits, rolling the boat over and practicing getting out. As the week progresses, you paddle more and more exposed water, using the skills you learn along the way. Each night you will camp somewhere new, with incredible views and spectacular wildlife.