Sea (side) kayaking.

Byline: Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

BANDON - Whispering wind and the slap of water on hard plastic hulls, punctuated by the occasional seagull's squawk, provided the background music for the band of five sea kayaks touring the lower Coquille River estuary.

But the sound that left the biggest impressionn on Kathleen Heinz of Eugene was the heavy, raspy breathing of harbor seals napping on a mud flat as the boaters paddled nearby.

"It was so great to get out there and hear the seals breathe," Heinz said after she and her husband, Greg, had completed their outing together in a two-person sea kayak - a guided tour offered by Adventure Kayak on the waterfront in Bandon.

Quiet, slow-moving and presenting a low profile in the water, kayaks are great for providing "eye-level views of nature," according to Bob Carr, who six years ago founded Adventure Kayak, the first waterfront kayak tour business on the Oregon coast.

"The seals haul out at the lower end of Bandon Marsh Refuge," Carr said. "The river's not used much by power boats, and there's no way to walk out to see 'em so the seals feel safe there ... kayaks, really, are the only way to see them as close as we do."

Close enough, in other words, to hear them breathe.

Meanwhile, people apprehensive about donning a "spray skirt" and wriggling into the cockpit of a long, skinny, shallow sea kayak usually breathe a lot easier once they shed some common misconceptions about sea kayaking.

"The first question almost everybody asks is, `What do we do when we tip over?' ' said Krista Nelson, an Oregon State University student who leads many of Adventure Kayak's tours.

"We tell them they won't tip over - that it's a big misconception," Nelson said. "These boats, the doubles, are extremely stable. They just don't tip over."

The kayaks, made out of lightweight carbon fiber or high-tech plastic, are also surprisingly easy to maneuver - especially those models with a rudder controlled by foot pedals. (Beginners, however, may find themselves over-steering until they get the hang of it.)

Another misconception, Carr said, "is that these touring or sea kayaks - the same boat shares both those names - are for the open ocean. People hear the word `sea' in that phrase and they think they're only for offshore.

"We don't take people offshore on our beginner tours," he said "We stay on the calm flatwaters of the Coquille River by the Bandon Marsh Refuge."

In fact, Carr said, there is very little open ocean kayaking done along the Oregon Coast, even among very experienced kayakers. The conditions are simply too rough too much of the time.

"There are very few of us that are paddling offshore because it's really quite dangerous to be offshore," Carr said. "Most people are staying in the bays, estuaries and lakes around here."

Adventure Kayak offers guided two-hour tours on the lower Coquille estuary or on the Coquille River ror $35 per person, a four-hour river paddle and shuttle for $45 and longer "exploration" paddles of upper Coos Bay and the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve for $65.

But the town often referred to as "Bandon by the Sea" also makes a great base for self-guided kayaking by the sea, whether in freshwater or salt.

"There are literally dozens of paddling opportunities," said Ron Wardman of Myrtle Point, author of "Oregon's Coos Region Canoe and Kayak Guide" (Westways Press, $10). "It surprised me how many places to paddle there are in this little section of the coast."

His book features descriptions and maps for about three dozen paddling tours that can be found between Port Orford and Reedsport. "And the book really only covers the tip of the iceberg," Carr said.

Wardman, a retired school teacher, decided to write a guidebook because he saw so many vehicles driving through the area with canoes or kayaks on their roofs - but seldom stopping. He figured, "those people must not be aware of where to go."

Still, he's surprised at how popular his book has become.

"When my publisher and I were discussing how many copies of the book to have printed, I said I would be surprised if we sold 200,' Wardman said. "He decided to print 1,800 - and we're almost sold out."

Asked to name a few of his favorite paddling trips, Wardman began talking about several in rapid succession - including Beale Lake, Sengstacken Arm of South Slough, New River and North (Hauser) Slough.

"One of the most interesting paddles, I think, is Beale Lake, which is really like three little lakes strung together. It's only about three miles around, but it offers such a variety of bird life and it's sandy on some sides so a person can get out and picnic."

The South Slough near Charleston is a popular sea kayaking tour, Wardman said, but many people overlook the Sengstacken Arm, "which is the best and most interesting part of the South Slough ... It goes back into a bunch of neat little areas."

The arm can only be paddled at high tide and, unlike the South Slough itself, "you can't do a shuttle," Wardman said. "It's strictly an in-and-out trip."

Anyone paddling in Oregon's tidewaters needs to be aware of the tide and the likely direction of the wind, Wardman said.

"I like the concept of catching the tide," he said, which is why the North (Hauser) Slough is on his short list of favorites.

"If you launch at the right time, the tide will take you up to Hauser. Then, about the time you get there, the current changes and the wind picks up and it takes you back to where you launched. I call it almost a free ride," Wardman said.

"Plus, I like it because there's a ton of egrets up in that area."

Meanwhile, efforts are afloat to make the southern Oregon coast an even more attractive destination for canoe and kayak paddlers by establishing several "water trails."

"We're exploring the possibility of establishing a water trail on the 40 miles of Coquille River from Myrtle Point to Bandon," said Reg Pullen, president of the Port of Bandon Commission.

The river, of course, can be used by paddlers now. But launch and take-out points are not readily apparent to visitors, and no overnight camping is available.

"To me, you don't really have a water trail unless you have the availability of overnight camping," Pullen said. "Now we don't have any, but the port and the county have several properties that would be excellent places to develop overnight facilities."

He said the port is looking into the possibility of rezoning an 80-acre site it owns about halfway to Myrtle Point so that semiprimitive overnight camping could be developed there. Then it would just be a matter of printing brochures with maps and erecting signage and, presto, water trail.

Pullen, a kayak enthusiast himself, says Coquille offers "a pastoral setting with lots of historic sites like old mills" and a healthy riparian area. In addition, he said, "the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has just acquired another several hundred acres that they'll be returning to salt marsh," which should lure more wildlife. All of that makes it an attractive place to paddle, he said.

Meanwhile "a lot of water trail planning is going on now" in other coastal areas, Pullen said, including in the Coos, Siuslaw and river estuaries.

"Kayaking is probably one of fastest growing sports in the country, I'd say," Pullen said. "It's good for us old codgers like me."

Wardman, the guidebook author, has noticed that kayaking seems to be especially popular among "middle-aged to older women - it amazes me the number I see out paddling."

And kayak touring is something that can be done year-round along the Oregon Coast. In fact, the paddling is often better between storms in the winter than it is on hot summer days, due to the brisk winds that can come up in the summer.

"A 20- to 30-mile-per-hour wind is not conducive for beginners to be on the water," said Carr. "In fact, we don't rent our boats out or run our tours when the wind starts blowing hard."

The key to coastal kayaking in the summer is to go early in the morning.

"A lot of times people show up here with their boats on top of the car and they want to get up at the leisurely hour of 10 o'clock and look for a place to go kayaking - and there isn't any," Carr said. "Because they should have been up early in the morning."

Before the winds pick up and the harbor seals get out of bed.

For additional information on guided kayak tours in the Bandon area, see www.adventurekayak.com or call [phone]. "Oregon's Coos Region Canoe and Kayak Guide" is available at many coast bookstores or from the publisher at: www.scod.com/guidebooks.

CAPTION(S):

Kayakers paddle through the Lower Coquille River's North Spit and Bandon Marsh Wildlife Refuge in Bandon on a recent morning. Nelson shows her students how to adjust the peddles for the kayak's rudder.