-- Last Updated: Feb-07-13 1:02 PM EST --
Check your library's and book stores' boating sections for boating-safety books. I almost bought one that was helpful otherwise but manifested an anti-kayak bias. You can find that pretty quickly by looking in the index under "kayaks". I don't want to support authors like that when there are other good books around.
A free source of info is your state's boating-safety booklet and its boating regulations booklet. These might be online also, so check for those.
Some kayaking books contain a summary of the most important boating-safety protocols.
You can get a lot of info for no or little money if you first check the above sources.
Link to some useful Coast Guard documents:
http://www.uscgboating.org/regulations/navigation_rules.aspx