Updated February 28th, 2019

This post might contain affiliate links. That means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, if you buy through my site. I appreciate your support of my site.

This year so far I have kayaked in the ocean and around a lake. Read all about my kayaking adventures around the world. When I heard there was a possibility to go kayaking in St. Petersburg, through the canals and rivers, I jumped at the chance to add those bodies of water to my international kayaking repertoire!

The tour through the canals of the city center was only at 6:00….in the morning! No way was I going to get myself up that early when on vacation.

Kayaking Options

PiterKayak has several tours, so I signed up for a nice evening paddle to the islands of St. Petersburg instead. The night before the tour it got cancelled. Ah! I had even worked myself up to be more excited that I was doing that tour and thus able to see a new part of the city away from the city center.

Initially I decided to forgo the experience, but a little nagging sensation kept telling me it was one of the things I was most looking forward to during my visit and it would be a unique experience to miss out on. I would only have to get up at 5:00am on a Sunday morning. It’s not that early, right!? Well, I am not exaggerating when I say that I can easily sleep until 5:00pm if I don’t have anything I need to get up for, so it did seem quite early to me.

During an internal debate of how much I wanted to kayak versus how much I really like to sleep, something that John, my tour guide on my 2nd trip to NYC said, came flashing back to me “you can sleep when you are home”. John would be proud, because every since that trip more than 10 years ago, I have lived by that motto during my travels.

So there I was the next morning at 6:00am all ready for the kayaking adventure I had originally wanted to go on. And some things just work out for the best…..

Preparing to Kayak the Rivers & Canals of St. Petersburg

My adventure began when a lady came up to me and said she would be translating for me. Wow my own personal translator included, only in Russia! The tour guides spent an hour getting the other Russian kayakers and me prepared for the journey.

We were given life jackets and a special splash jacket that was rather smelly, but it did keep me dry. I also had my first experience wearing a kayak skirt that goes around the opening of the kayak. We were given a safety briefing and practiced sitting in our kayaks and getting the foot pedal position correct. At the very end we were given helmets. I thought, what?….why do we need those? Mine didn’t fit that good, but who needs a helmet for kayaking?

It was a lot to get ready, but I don’t think it needed quite so long…..it wasn’t because of the translation time either! I was getting pretty antsy to get going, but the actual kayaking portion was worth the wait.

My translator stayed behind and I set out on a double kayak with a non-English speaking Russian man and group of Russians!

The Kayaking Begins

It brought me back to taking a gondola ride in Venice. Only this time I was the one steering the boat! We were the leaders of the pack. The girl who doesn’t know where she is going or speak the native language is forging the way!

Not too long after we set out I saw a speed boat coming. As it finally started to slow down my kayak partner and I headed to the side to get away from the boat and then away from the wall to avoid crashing, or at least I did…I never really knew what his intentions were! It wasn’t too bad as it passed us, but ironically enough I learned from my mom when kayaking in Austria that it is worse after the boat passes and you should hit the waves sideways. Her limited kayaking experience may have not been the best to follow, but no-one else around spoke English so that’s what I went with!

The waves were, um quite wavey, and I did see how a helmet could be convenient if we went crashing into the embankment. The waves kept coming and coming. After awhile I didn’t really know what my strategy should be so I decided to just ride them out! Thankfully we stayed away from the walls and just had a bit of early excitement to the journey.

Ironically this paddling trip with someone who only spoke Russian turned out to have fewer communication errors, than paddling with my English speaking mother did! The guy I was with may have even been a guide. His kayaking skills were very proficient and even more impressive was that he was able to coordinate with my paddling movements and steer us away from the embankments and get us under the bridges with ease several times. I learned that it was often better if I didn’t ‘help’ and just let him figure it out!

I wanted to be in my own kayak and was concerned about sharing one and especially communicating, but it was actually quite nice to be able to stop paddling and take rests to soak up the historic surroundings.

The 1.5 hour kayaking adventure ended at the Summer Palace after a stretch directly on the Neva River!  

I had a nice 25 minute walk back to my hotel where I could further enjoy being out and about in the world before the canal tours started and most people even woke up. Russia played in the World Cup the night before so must people were probably still sleeping off the loss.

Visiting Information

Where

The Purple marker shows the meeting point of the early morning city center tour. 

How to Get There

At this early hour I found it easiest to take a taxi. Taxis are really cheap in Russia so a 10/15min journey will only cost you a couple of dollars. I put ‘naberezhnaya reki Fontanki, 139’ into a taxi app to end up at the meeting spot shown in the map above. 

Company

Piterkayak

Review

Communication beforehand was in English and went well. The initial cancellation due to ‘technical problems’ disappointed me, but the experience was a lot of fun and a really cool way to see the city. 

I was impressed that the company paid someone to translate all the safety information for me. Despite not being able to communicate a whole lot with the guides on the tour, they were friendly and I felt very safe. Some companies don’t allow you to book on your own, so I appreciated that even though they just had double kayaks I was still able to join.  

Lastly, photos are taken throughout the tour and emailed to you for free.

Toilets

As it is very early in the morning there are no toilets/changing areas available near the starting point. 

Food

At the end of the tour you receive a free granola bar and water bottle.  

More About St. Petersburg

Pin It!