The GPS as made a lot of the older ways of doing things really obsolete but they are still handy to know and even fun to pracice. Not to mention if you have really nice kayak you probably blew the GPS money on the boat.

Wondering how fast your drifting with the current, well lets see if we can figure it out. Put on your favourite Algebra hat and lets get busy. First pick a fixed object on the river bank and time how long it takes your kayak to float by it, take the time and divide the length of your boat by it and you will have the feet per second the boat travelled, now multiply this by 3,600 (number of seconds per hour) and finish by dividing this by 6,076 feet  (Length of n. mile) and you will now have the knots per hour that you are travelling, wasn't that fun. Once you have established this base you will know that if you try it again and it takes only half as long your going twice as fast or if it takes twice as long to pass the mark your doing half the speed. With a bit of practice you will be able to guessimate your boat speed pretty close or close enough for the rivers I travel. You can buy a knot meter for kayaks if your that concerned but me I'm happy just to go as far as I can or untill I want to stop be it 1 mile or 50 miles later. My best day was 75 miles in 8 hours on the Mackenzie River and that was enough for me and Sploosh that day. Cheers Greg