Waves are less appealing today.

"God's choices in inflicting suffering are not satisfactory to us, nor are they understandable, unless innocence offends Him. Clearly, he needs some help in directing the blind fury with which He flogs the earth."

Thomas Harris in “Hannibal”.

These lines strike a chord with me, particularly that first sentence which resonates powerfully through me and leaves me feeling like a well struck tuning fork.  As a younger man I was troubled by the injustice of a wrathful old testament god. (Young people do tend to have a deep or perhaps overdeveloped sense of injustice). These days I have come to an arrangement with Him. I don’t believe in Him and He can believe in me if He feels like it.

The world makes more sense to me when viewed from a rational and evidence based standpoint. I see no need for a god and I don’t require the carrot and stick of the after-life to encourage me to act ethically and morally in the here and now. This planet can be our Heaven and our Garden of Eden if we choose to make it so. Sadly, from time to time, bad things happen, there is no need to go looking for any form of malevolent or wrathful will directing them. Are these Acts of God ? No just the massive and impersonal forces of nature. The important thing is how we respond to these events to minimize the loss of life and support those in immediate need.

Around the Pacific, the people of Japan and New Zealand have been hit by devastating geological events which are hard for the rest of us to even contemplate. The toll in human suffering is vast and my heart goes out to all those who have lost their homes or worse, members of their family and friends.

It’s a little hard to think about going paddling just at present.

Kayalite by Kayalu

I like paddling in the dark. It's less crowded, you have zero risk of sunburn and the moon and stars are rather cool. There's another big benefit for your paddling too.

When you paddle in the dark your proprioception is enhanced. What's proprioception ? It's a big word for having a sense of where you and your body parts are in space. Or in the context of kayaking an awareness of your boats orientation in space. In the dark you FEEL where the boat is and what it's doing. The more responsive your boat is the more important proprioception becomes and if you can improve your awareness of the boat, your boat control and your feel for the stability of the boat improve.

Of course you're also a lot less visible to other boat traffic and this is where the Kayalite comes in. This was a birthday present and was sourced from Mark Sundin at Expedition Kayaks. It's easy to attach to the boat, securely attached and tethered to the boat, very waterproof (1000 feet !) and being LED based you don't have to worry about the battery going flat for a long time. 2 miles visibility with a 200 hour burn time on one set of AAs. 10,000 hours life on the LED itself.

The only downside I could see was that mounting on the back deck at 18 inches high it is largely concealed from small  boat traffic directly in front of you. (There is an alternate model offering with longer mounting poles if this really concerns you). In the real world you're likely to see a boat coming straight towards you from dead ahead and would make a distinct course change to avoid a collision anyway, the light will become visible to the other boat as soon as you change course.

I usually have a C-Light on my PFD, attached just behind the shoulder, and the Kayalite definitely results in less interference to my night vision as it's placed on the back deck out of my line of sight. It's also raised on a short mast which improves it's visibility further.

There have been some excellent reviews of the kayalite in Ocean paddler magazine and at Solent Sea Kayaking. For more information see:
http://www.kayalu.com/