Custom sea kayak guide and leadership training courses in Jersey

Develop essential paddle skills

We now offer custom sea kayak guide, leadership and skills courses, often in the shoulder months, for sea kayakers to develop their sea kayak skills within a personally designed training program.

Sea kayakers from Finland, Switzerland, the UK and Mauritius have chosen Jersey as their base to develop leadership and sea kayak guiding skills due to the range of different sea kayaking opportunities around the coast.

Sea kayak guiding and skills training courses

Sea kayaking and sea kayak guiding is a growth area In many countries but there is often a lack of a local national standard for paddlers and kayak guides to benchmark themselves against, especially if they plan to lead or guide sea kayak tours. Increasingly paddlers look to the BCU awards for internationally recognised sea kayaking qualifications.

Individual courses can be tailor made to suit a paddlers needs depending on the amount of time available, the level they wish to attain and budget. This is based on a personal performance profile. Internship style options during the main season are also possible.

Why sea kayak in Jersey?

Blow holes near Bonne Nuit Bay

Though Jersey might seem small, the island has superb sea kayaking. On the west coast there are excellent surf beaches, which have produced a couple of surf kayak world champions, while the north coast cliffs are riddled with caves and rock gardens.

Just to add an extra bit of flavour, there are a few “interesting” tide races – a result of the huge 12m tide range. This is an island where the sea really can rise and fall by up to 3 inches per minute.

If that is not enough, the offshore reefs of Les Minquiers and Les Écréhous and the other Channel Islands provide a range of offshore sea kayaking opportunities.

At the same time stunningly calm and clear waters can still be found even in mid winter. Drysuits and all equipment can be supplied.

Good transport links and infra structure on Jersey

Overfalls training and rock gardens at La Tour de Rozel

Unlike some locations Jersey has excellent transport links and there is also plenty of other things to do. This makes it feasible for partners and even families to stay on the island.

At times the needs of students cover more than just sea kayaking. Our most most recent students from Kola Kayaking in Finland realised that they lacked skills in preparing lobster and flatfish.

The upshot was that we arranged a master class on preparing lobster and flatfish with Daniel the proprietor and chef at Bracewells restaurant, St Aubin. This included sending Peter and Sanna off to buy a live lobster from Faulkner Fisheries.

Fortunately the live lobster did not escape on their bus  journey to the restaurant.

Listen to Peter Forsstrom of Kola Kayaking in Finland talk about his sea kayaking experiences in Jersey.