The Hand and Footwear Guide You Wish You Knew About Before Taking on a Kayaking Trip
So you have booked a couple of kayaking tours, or are planning to visit Kayaks and Boards to avail one of the super cool rental offers, and happen to love the water sports. It is not enough that you book a tour for a premium experience you may need to gear up for a comfortable kayak trip.
Wet Suit Booties
Wet suit booties crafted of neoprene are a great choice when it comes to kayaking. Sandals are at times dangerous as they run the risk of foot entrapment and do not protect socks. And you cannot just go with any water shoes either; most popular shoes fashioned for wearing in water are too bulky and would not fit in the hull of the kayak, especially since the heels of your feet are already rubbing against its interior when you paddle.
When worn with dry socks underneath wet suit booties then only suit narrow feet. For them, an ideal choice of kayaking footwear would be the wide design wet suit booties with thin soles. But it is not recommended that you go for the thin sole option unless your foot size makes it necessary, as you might find yourself walking a certain distance when you get out of kayak and that might mean walking across broken sea shells and rocks in certain areas.
The most underrated piece of kayaking footwear remains the Launch Sock. Used to get in and out of your boat, their real use is around camp. Wearing these dry socks inside the booties will keep your feet comfortable on land and in kayak, and save you from stuffing bulky shoed feet in the kayak for an uncomfortable kayaking tour experience.
What to Buy as Hand Wear
Besides warmth, gloves do more than protect your hands from harmful UV rays. You must be smart and pick gloves that go for the particular season that you have planned to take your canoe out in. If you are an all year round paddler you might want to invest in a few different gloves, like the finger less ones, the 1mm to 2mm neoprene fashioned glove, and the traditional paddle mitts, also known as ‘poggies’ which are popular among athletes as a one size fits all solution.
You can tell a good neoprene glove by the smooth rubber attached on the side of it for good grip, with lycra lining inside, and claw like curvature designs on the fingers. The thing about a good quality paddling glove is that it can easily get ruined when you use paddles that constantly rubbing against the rubber. When their durability is improved upon they end up being of less quality as more durable materials like lycra and leather don’t have that good a grip.
