days like this keep me warm,
keep me warm,
keep us warm – the spree

Happy Monday! Well, last week the emails were starting to go round as arrangments for staff at this year’s Canoecopia are being made. Mary and I both expect to spend a good part of the weekend “working our fingers to the bone”. and these emails were the beginning of a kayak “flood” over the next few days.

Then Friday the owner of Vertical Illusions in Wisconsin Dells gave me a call. We spent a good amount of time talking about the kayaking opportunites in this area and his shop’s plans for summer. It sounds like Kayak lessons and Guided trips on the Upper & Lower Dells will be a big part of it.

Saturday Mary and I were loaded up and just dropping off Gryphon at the sitter before heading off to L. Columbia, when a car pulls up and the driver says “Hey is that a Greenlander?”. What were the odds we would run into a SOF builder from Reedsburg? Cool.

No need to mention the lady at the gas station who asked if that’s a sailboat on our jeep!!!

When we arrived at the lake we found another couple (photo above) had beat us to the launch and were getting their gear together. After returning to their home in Illinois from a paddling trip to Florida they decided to come up to Lake Columbia! In our part of the country warm water is an addiction this time of year!

That evening I came home to find an email from an author putting together a book of “informal groups” who was researching our little paddling “non-communities”.

Then yesterday I received an email from Thomas Barmonte of the Chicago Area Sea Kayakers Association (CASKA). He is putting together a little list of kayak bloggers for everyone in the Chicago group who are probably getting as cabin crazy as the rest of us. Thanks for that Thomas! He’d better link Bonnie & Wenley or they’ll get the impression that all blogs are as hackneyed as mine!!

There are times when this crazy sport, habit, addiction permeate every part of your life. Heck, I have two kayak models about 6 inches from my nose as I type this! It’s total immersion! And that’s ok. . . as long as the water is warm.

And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was
Lying still
Said I gotta do something
About where we’re going
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night
Singing Ha, Ah La La La De Day – U2

If you take on a big enough challenge, one that takes a long time to complete, it’s pretty easy to slip off the radar. Each day for sometime now as we get up and go on with our day and plan our summer paddling season, Renata Chlumska has diligently been working her way around the lower 48 by bike and kayak. Today I want to take time to acknowledge Renata and this amazing undertaking.

She and her partner Goran Kropp had been planning this 10,850 mile circumnavigation for some time. Life had to be good. Her and Goran had moved to Issaquah, Washington with an exciting future laid out before them. Then in an instant the world goes “freeze-frame”. In 2002 while Renata was leading a trek to Everest Base Camp, Kropp fell from a flaky basalt crack on the Sunshine Wall in Washington state.

As we all know, Renata ultimately decided to do this trip solo. In fact right this minute she is probably paddling her way east along the golf coast somewhere near Mobile, Alabama.

A circumnavigation of the lower 48 is no easy task. In fact, it’s never been done. I remember a quote from the BBC comedy “Father Ted” who when talking about a dancing priest crossing the US, said he was “only mugged every 15 miles or so”. But seriously, she will be paddling some difficult seas along the way as well as the Great Lakes, and we can’t overlook the miles of bike trekking to complete this amazing adventure. One that most of us could not conceive, let along take on. I was thinking that she will probobly put more miles under her hull in this single trip than some of us will in a lifetime. I certainly wish her all the best, today and every day to come.

Recently I had read a pretty bizarre post on Pnet regarding this expedition and was really shocked by the guys spin on things. Let’s be fair here guys, Renata is no punk. She claims a long list of solo accomplishments including:

- 1995 Project manager for the Sweden-Everest Solo Expedition 95-96. Part of the film crew in Europe, Turkey and Pakistan.

- 1996 Base camp manager for the Swedish-Everest Solo Expedition, 7 weeks. Bicycled 4000 km from Nepal to Sweden, thru India, Pakistan, China and Russia.

- 1997 Organized an expedition to Shishapangma 8012 m, Tibet. Became the first Swedish woman to reach above 8000 m without supplementary oxygen by reaching the Central summit, 8006 m. Drove a motorcycle all the way from India, New Delhi, thru Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Europe to Sweden.

- 1999 Project manager for the Swedish Everest Cleaning Expedition. Became the first Swedish and Czech woman to summit Mount Everest. Motorcycle expedition in India, 2 weeks.

- 2000 Project manager for Swedish North Pole Expedition. Adventure consultant for Swedish Television show, 1 month. Organized and guided 2 trips to Kilimanjaro.

- 2001 Organized and guided 2 trips to Kilimanjaro. Recon on Kilimanjaro for Swedish Television. Organized and guided 1 trip to Mount Everest base camp.

- 2002 Organized and guided 1 trip to Kilimanjaro. Kenya, Ice climbing. Organized and guided 1 trip to Mount Everest base camp.

- 2003 Appointed by Outside Magazine as one of the 25 most successful female athletes year 2003.

Hopefully a few of us Wisconsinites can catch up to her when she reaches the Apostles!

So what’s the point of such an adventure? I’m not sure there really has to be one. All I can say is I can’t help but be inspired. And in our world inspiration seems reason enough! In fact, it’s a damn good reason.

- d

—————————————————–
Read More;

Official Website – http://www.renatachlumska.com/
Krusell Article – http://www.krusell.se/renata.php
National Geographic Article about Goran Kropp – http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1004_021004_kroppclimber.html
Wenley’s July Blog – http://www.onkayaks.squarespace.com/journal/2005/7/2/saturday-july-2nd-2005-renata-chlumska.html
Get Outdoors Article – http://www.getoutdoors.com/goblog/index.php?/archives/132-Renata-Chlumska-Circumnavigating-the-Lower-48-By-Bike-and-Kayak.html

Photos of Renata provided by Björn Landerberg. Used by permission.

Live baby live
Now that the day is over
I got a new sensation
In perfect moments
Impossible to refuse – inxs

I just want to share a quick option for paddle float rescues. As much as it’s nice (sometimes) to have bungies or clips to hold your paddle in place for a paddle float rescue, it’s usually not necessary. In fact there is a downside. “locking down” your paddle does add a risk of breaking the paddle if you put too much weight on it when launching onto the back deck. It can also cause more issues when you try to remove it after you are back in your cockpit. Balance can go haywire when you try to reach back behind you. It sucks to end up right back in the water!

In the above photo you can see how I hook my (inside/forward) hand on the back combing of the kayak while holding the paddle in place with my thumb. My other hand reaches across the back deck and wraps over the side. From here I can easily launch up onto my deck. Yes, you do have to manage the paddle a bit by keeping it at a right angle to the boat while you work your way into the cockpit. You also have to have a clean efficient launch onto your deck. However, with practice it’s a simple and fast method.

If you are having trouble with your launch, here is a simple visualization. Kick your feet until your body is horizontal on the water, then swim onto the deck. Or if you like, slide the boat under you. Don’t “JUMP” up onto the boat. “Jumping” can work if you have the upper body strength, but for many of us we’ll just remain in the water totally exhausted. Get horizontal to the water, and slide/pull the kayak under your chest.

Another issue can be that smaller hands cannot wrap around the combing and paddle shaft. Yep, I know that can be a pain. Luckily there are smaller shafts out there these days, and they can really be a blessing for smaller paddlers.

The one nice thing about putting your paddles under a bungies or clips is that it will stay in place and steady the boat until you are ready to go. However, you can also accomplish this if when you are in the seat, you bring the paddle around and place it over the combing and under your elbows while you pump out the boat and get your skirt in place.

Either method will work. However, if a boat is not designed with bungies or clips to hold a paddle it should not effect your ability to self-rescue. In fact, with time you may find this method to be much quicker and safer.

In time we learn other methods to recover. The best recovery is simply to roll the boat up without swimming. The next choice would be to re-enter and roll. Even if you cannot “roll”, it is possible to re-enter and roll with a paddle float. But that’s another post. . . Stay tuned!!

Just my nickel!

- d

Oh he love, he love, he love
He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity – bush

Did you ever wonder how many people visit a website each day? Well, it can be millions of course if you’re talking about Amazon! For the rest of the world we can be looking at anywhere from tens of thousands to 3 lonely people at 4 in the morning. It’s hard to tell. Even though folks often think we can track every breath a visitor takes, we can’t. Heck even the numbers we can get from our statistical logs and programs is never really right. So many factors are just too “iffy”. So website owners have to come to terms with what they are seeing. Here’s a good example. I had one website running with 2 different stats programs. They both worked correctly and read the same raw data. One program (LiveStats) said the site had 1400 or so visitors a day. The other program (Urchin) said 430 a day!!!!! Ok, that’s wild. (Now let me tell the tech guys right off, that I can think of 107 reasons for this, worked the issues, contacted the experts, and found reliable answers) Thing is, both programs were correct using their own method of looking at that data. So what do you do as the site owner? Believe the big number? Create an average? Well, being that I’m a Charlie Brown kind of guy I keep using the program that quoted the 430! I don’t want to lie. But I also know the truth lies somewhere in the middle! So how does Urchin see KayakWisconsin.net?Here is an (urchin lowballed) cold accountant’s eye view of the last year at KayakWisconsin.net, from Jan 1, to Dec 31 of 2005;

Summary

- Visitor Sessions: 55,186
- Total Page Views: 357, 680
- Total Hits: 1,318,807*
- Average 977 page views per day
- Average visit is over 4.2 minutes

* For “non” web people “hits” is a false term in that it counts every file downloaded. Think about it this way, If a webpage has one picture and someone looks at it, it would count as 2 hits. One for the page & one for the picture. So what then if the page had 5 images? That’s 6 hits, yet still only one person saw one page. It just get’s more inflated from there. . .What if a person looked at 2 pages with 10 pictures on each page? You can see how over time this number gets crazy. So we always look for “Visitor Sessions” or “Unique Visitors”. Never “Hits”.

Top 10 Pages (by views)

- Kayak Wisconsin Homepage (viewed 39,166 times)
- Blog Homepage*
- Personal Kayak Pictures
- Water Trail Index
- Free Kayak Wallpaper Page
- Kayak Video Page
- Blogs & Journals Listings
- Paddling Places
- Site Map
- Great Lakes Water Trails

* People come into the blog (as the rest of the site) from all over the place so it’s really tough to get daily numbers. Meaning that while maybe 70% of visitors to the blog each day come to the main page, another 30% did a web search and came into the blog through the archives and not directly via the main page. So you have to do some math. (which by the way, I Hate!!) I can estimate that over 300 visitors read a blog post each day, but not necessarily from the main page.

Top 10 Blog Posts (by views)

- The Freya Underground
- Learning To Fly
- Qajaq Training Camp (by Alex Pak)
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Kayaking Rabbits?
- PFD’s & Revolutions
- Rugged Western Shores
- Dry Wit or Wet Suit
- Stupid Kayak Tricks
- Hey Moto, is there anybody out there?
- Watership Down

Most Viewed Galleries

- BCU Week, Tybee Island 2005
- Canoecopia 2005
- Lake Michigan Ice
- Door County Sea Kayak Symposium
- Kayak Weekend 2005

Most Popular Video

Keith W. doing his now infamous “Lumberjack Roll” It was watched over 4,477 times!

Most Popular Handout

Easily the Hypothermia Table followed by “Symtoms of Hypothermia“.

More About You!

- over 73% of visitors just come to the site via bookmark or typing the name in directly. 11% come from search engines. All other individual referral/link account for less that 0.6% of the total traffic.

- Visitors have stopped by from over 70 countries. Mostly US, UK, & Canada, with a good number from Israel, Netherlands, Germany, Australia & NZ, Sweden, Denmark & Norway as well.

All in all it’s pretty amazing to me. I hope we can keep finding new things to talk about!!!

So there’s the numbers. Now I’ve got to go load the boat. . .

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves,
the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword,
are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man. – blake

I’ve got to answer some email today. I’ve got to start thinking of summer. I have to begin making some commitments. We’ve got to think about paddle sports shows, instructing, trips & symposiums again. How many symposiums should a balanced person attend each year. . . 4 or 5?

The photo above was taken Craig Wilson using his ingenious “Kite Cam”. You’ll see I have pictures of him and his rig in the New Years 2006 Gallery. Sure makes for some interesting shots. Go Here for more. The guy in the red boat is Jack Burton of Baraboo. The other two you know.

* Photo used by permission. Remember you can click the image to see a larger version. Thanks Craig!

If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little god’s causin’ rain storms
turnin’ every good thing to rust. – arcade fire

Good Morning! How are we all doing today? Have we put away Christmas and New Years and once again become productive members of society? Good for us!For myself I have to work my way back into it slowly, like climbing into a bath that was run too hot. Give me a few days and I’ll be back in the working state of mind. . . or. . . maybe not.

Yesterday we took advantage of the 40f day and went back out to “Smokey lake” which is our pet name for L. Columbia. I spent time annoying the kayak gods by paddling a WW boat with a Greenland Stick, while Mary and Gryphon roamed the banks. Then right before we left Gryphon and I went for a swim! I can hear grandmothers cringing everywhere!

By the way, remember that Basking Shark? Let’s go see one over at Adventurous Experiences on the Isle of Man, UK. Nice Video!