TOURING BY KAYAK Though it's called sea kayaking, you can do it on lakes and rivers too. It's serene and exhilarating.
By MARILYN WELLEMEYER RESEARCH ASSOCIATE Julianne Slovak

(FORTUNE Magazine) – On a recent sparkling Saturday morning ten novice kayakers and three guides hurried to start their weekend tour among the San Juan Islands, some 60 miles north of Seattle. To paddle the three miles from Guemes Island to Cypress Island, they had to cross the Bellingham Channel between high and low tides. Otherwise they risked getting caught in a riptide, which would make for tough going, possibly danger. John Besteman, 50, an executive at Boeing Computer Services, slipped into the aft of a 20-foot kayak and snapped the sprayskirt around the cockpit's edge to keep the inside dry. In the forward cockpit his wife, Kay, set the rhythm of their strokes with her twin-bladed paddle; Besteman synchronized his paddle with hers and controlled the rudder with foot pedals. As if wishing them smooth passage, an eagle glided between treetops. A pair of playful seals popped out of the kelp. Besteman turned instant enthusiast: ''We became part of nature, only inches above the water in our kayaks, using our muscle power, seeing everything, and feeling the salt spray,'' he recalls. Says Robert Miles, 55, president of ROI Computer Co. in Seattle: ''We were enthralled in a different world.'' Kayak touring takes paddlers to shallow coves and rocky coastlines they could never reach by deeper-drawing motorboats or sailboats. In the 1980s kayaking has flourished on the island-studded Northwest Coast and Down East among Maine's coastal islands. Though best known as sea kayaking, the sport offers pleasure on almost any open water without dangerous rapids and has recently taken hold in the Midwest. Shaun Devlin, 49, a Ford manager, and his wife, Sheila, took to kayaking on the Great Lakes two years ago, where cruising is often best along the Canadian shores. This season sea kayaks are selling briskly on New York's Long Island. Today's version of the ancient Eskimo sealskin craft, touring kayaks are more seaworthy than canoes and their nimble white-water brethren. They are less tippy than canoes because the paddler sits on the floor instead of a raised seat, lowering the center of gravity, and the bottom is relatively flat. Speed comes with a narrow tapered hull, longer than a white-water kayak's, that with ^ normally vigorous paddling slices through water at three knots. A Chinook touring kayak for one costs about $600 from Aquaterra; a double ranges from $1,695 for Eddyline's San Juan, the kind the Bestemans paddled, to $1,800 for a folding Klepper. Invented in Germany in 1907, the Klepper knocks down to 37 wooden pieces, a rubber hull, and a canvas deck that fit in two bags for checking on a plane. KAYAK CRUISING differs from white-water kayaking as much as cross-country skiing does from downhill. River runners, in their highly maneuverable craft, need a half-dozen strokes; cruising kayakers require basically one forward stroke, plus a brace maneuver to keep the boat from capsizing. That makes sea kayaking look deceptively simple. But it requires a knowledge of navigation and seamanship -- familiarity with tides, winds, and waves. On Easter weekend a kayaker suffered hypothermia and drowned in New York's Jamaica Bay after capsizing in a Klepper with an optional sail rig. He had not installed air bags that keep the craft afloat or worn a wet suit. Only intrepid voyagers once attempted sea kayaking expeditions. Today guided paddling tours put sea kayaking within reach of most fit adults. Expedition packages range from a 15-day July odyssey in a Greenland fiord near the Arctic Circle ($1,300) to a winter fortnight's 100-mile paddle among the dolphins, porpoises, and whales in Baja California's Sea of Cortez ($865), both offered by Ecosummer Canada Expeditions of Vancouver (604-669-7741). Several North American outfitters and schools for paddlers -- listed often in Canoe magazine (P.O. Box 3146, Kirkland, Washington 98083) -- offer short sea kayaking trips with instruction. A half-day tour of the San Francisco waterfront and a class required for beginners cost $39 each (Pier 66 Paddle Sports, 415-652-3987). Off Camden, Maine, one-day guided trips are $50 from Sea Touring Kayak Center; its weekend camping trips cost $180 and its three- day instructional clinic $210 (207-236-9569). The San Juan Islands trip was organized by Northwest Outdoor Center of Seattle (206-547-1989). For $98 per person the new paddlers got kayaks, equipment for two days of guided paddling, and an evening's briefing on what to expect and what to do. After their successful crossing, they were served Saturday night dinner of fresh salmon grilled on the beach. They brought their own breakfast, lunch, and overnight camping gear. Next day extraordinarily high winds delayed their departure until midafternoon, emphasizing the need for guidance and instruction. As they paddled back, a power boat circled with passengers taking pictures of the nine kayaks as though they were a pod of whales. Says John Besteman: ''I felt a certain distance from those boat people, sort of 'you guys don't understand.' '' For more rugged schooling in the watery wilderness, Michael Jacoby, 29, a vice president in the Chicago office of Bankers Trust, chose a week at Outward Bound's Hurricane Island school in Maine. The focus was preparing for and surviving a kayak expedition at sea, and learning to recover from a capsize. Nine students planned and executed the trip, with two guides trailing as observers. They paddled eight hours, with three short breaks, to reach their camping ground, a beach where mussel-studded shoals provided part of their supper. Jacoby says, ''I would love to do more kayaking.'' Tuition: one week, $700; two weeks, $1,000 (800-341-1744). At symposiums experts speak and manufacturers offer kayaks for test- paddling. In Traverse City, Michigan, the Great Lakes Kayak Touring Symposium takes place June 27-29; admission $50 (313-644-6909). In Castine, Maine, L.L. Bean holds a symposium August 8-10; registration, which includes admission, $40 (207-865-4761). And September 5-7, the West Coast Sea Kayaking Symposium will be at Port Townsend, Washington; registration, including admission, $60 (P.O. Box 84144, Seattle, Washington 98124). Sea Kayaker, a quarterly, costs $10 a year (6327 Seaview Avenue Northwest, Seattle, Washington 98107). ANorAK, published by the Association of North Atlantic Kayakers, a network of paddlers, suggests itineraries; $10 for six issues (14 Heather Drive, Suffern, New York 10901). One of the best how-to books is Sea Kayaking: A Manual for Long-Distance Touring, by John Dowd (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986, $8.95). While you're reading, start working those shoulders and arms; although kayaking does not require great strength, it demands a lot of stamina.