So, last week I got this pretty card from Gail at Living Adventure near Bayfield, Wisconsin. I say Gail, because she’s the one who takes off all winter to suffer the heat of the Yucatan while leaving her poor husband Grant to shovel snow and answer the bi-monthly winter phone call. No, I’m just making that up. Maybe he gets to go along once in awhile. In the summer Living Adventures is charged with organizing the Inland Sea Symposium in Bayfield meanwhile offering some fantastic guided tours of the Apostle islands. (Hey, their guides do the cooking. . .) Then each year about the first of January it’s off to the Yucatan with a variety of vacation packages designed to help you get your head together while surrounded by warm tropical breezes. Yeah, life is tough all over! Each package offers plenty of opportunities to paddle as you would guess. But they leave you plenty of time to swim, explore, or just lay around on the beach while muching fresh fruit and sipping hibiscus tea.

This year Living Adventure is offering a Mayan exploration trip which will give you the chance to explore some of the magnificent archaeological sites on the Yucatan and include a side trip to the "cenotes", which are beautiful underground fresh water pools that were once sacred to the Mayan people. They will also be offering an "Art/Adventure Series". So for those times when you’re out of your kayak you can explore your more artistic side through a variety of workshops. Both American and local artists with be on hand to share ideas and techniques. – More Details

Hmmmm. Hot sun, warm blue azure waters, fantastic food, painting, exploring Mayan ruins. . . I wonder if she needs a guide?

Finally got my norsaq rolls starting to work regulary on my “off” side. Something to celebrate for sure. On the other hand after 4 hours of constant rolling practice yesterday my old hide is feeling over taxed. It’s begging me to lay around the house all day and watch TV. . . . or maybe do something slightly more energetic and go to the mall.

I suppose it’s a good time for a preface. Gordon Brown is one of the most well respected and knowledgeable Sea kayaking coaches in the world. This is why when Gordon speaks, the sea kayak world listens. (Gordon, if you’re reading this, how’d you like that build up!??)

As most of us know by now GB started a bit of a fire in the traditional kayaking world during a recent podcast interview with Simon Willis by saying in reference to his new book, “Sea Kayak”:

“I have said quite pointedly that there is no place in modern sea kayaking for those [Greenland paddles]…The Greenlanders were a race of survivors. If and when guns came along, do you think they still used harpoons? And when outboard motors came along did they still use kayaks? And when nails came along, did they stop tying kayaks together? As sure as we are sitting here, if they had carbon fiber paddles, they would have used carbon fiber paddles…”

When I saw the sudden online firestorm rolling through QajaqUSA, I thought, “I bet neither Gordon nor Simon, were even slightly expecting this. . . ” Yep, that’s the power of our instant global communication world! One second you’re sitting nice and comfy talking to a friend and the next you’re being lynched by a bunch of strangers on the other side of the world. Ouch! Bloggers, Podcasters, and their guests may find a lesson in there that our words must be thought through, even if regularly mis-spelled.

My first thought was to re-iterate Rowland W’s assertion that one guy’s opinion is NOT the BCU opinion. The concept that the BCU is against traditional paddles is just plain silly. However, there are some silly coaches who are against traditional paddles. But that’s another story all together.

In reading what I have in the past from and about Gordon Brown, I think he’s another one of those coaches I’d sell my left shoe to get instruction from. I was curious what his take on the reaction would be. Although he has responded many times that he has a long history of using traditional paddles, I had really expected he would give a thoughtful defense or at least justification to the concept that “Greenland paddles have no place in modern sea kayaking”. It would at least be an interesting discussion.

I’m jaded. All you need do is paddle a couple days with Doug Van Doren to question such a blanket statement. Certainly Doug, Greg S. and others are intermediate to advanced sea kayakers. . no matter what Greg says. I do realize that there are many rollers who may not have the skills to do multi-day trips on rough waters. But then, there a plenty of NDK owners with the same problem. . . And hey, that’s not everyone’s bag anyway. If it’s an issue of materials, then we could argue there’s no place for a wood Euro either. But I can’t see an assertion like that being worth printing. Besides we’ve been seeing fast growth in traditional gear using modern materials. Superior’s Graphite paddles have been around for some time, and new traditional kit is coming out all the time. (can you say “traditional” and “kit” in the same sentence??)

Am I biased? Well, no more than anyone else who “goes both ways” as I like to say. My gut tells me they all go together. Beals & Lendals, Superior paddles & Epics all look great together. Nothing slicker than my black storm on the deck of my Explorer if you ask me! It all just seems like 2 sides of the same coin, and maybe the same side of the same coin.

So I guess I’m just confused and still wondering; “Greenland paddles have no place in modern sea kayaking”? In what way? Maybe, I’ll have to buy the book. . .

peace

So this is my tow bag. Certainly NOT brand new, it’s an old pink North Water. (yep it was red once). I used to have a carabineer on it but after some discussion with a coach much more experienced than I, I changed it out for a smaller clip. In fact this came in really handy once when I towed a rowboat full of teenage girls into shore after they had partially sunk their boat. A carabineer would not have fit in the metal clip on the row boat. However since then I had another kayaking Super-being explain how he saw a clip shake loose and lose a kayak in a double tow. He prefers carabineers. Go Figure. Thus the phrase, “Do what works for you”.

So if I pull it out all over the place. You’ll notice there are two globs of rope. The bit with the clip on the end is what I normally end up using around here. It’s long enough to keep a towed kayak maybe 5-7 feet off my tail as we go. Bit two is the other 35 feet or so that I have daisy-chained and clipped off. Here in Wisconsin you could conceivably be happy with just the short rope (on inland lakes anyway). But the idea (remember this for the test) is that if you tow a boat too close in rough conditions it can come sliding down the wave and run into you while you are stalling on the next wave. All in all it’s just a mess. So you want to put out enough rope to keep the victim’s kayak back at least one set, so in a perfect world both boats are in a trough or on a wave at the same time. Thing is, having all that rope out there adds a lot of resistance as well. Never use any more rope than you have to.

As I said, the rest of the rope is daisy chained and clipped off inside the bag. This makes it easy to feed out as much as I need, then clip off the rest. You’re right, this takes time. So this is the pretty set up you use when you have time. On the water, you just. . . pardon the expression, “Stuff It!”

Now here’s something to think about. You’ll notice in the photo above the rope is feeding to the right. Of course being a bear with a very little brain, I a made a complete mess of the packing job and now my float is going to hang up in the top of the bag. . . .

What I should have done it checked to be sure that the float was set in the bag so it would feed out properly and not have to flip over to come out of the bag.

As I mentioned above when you’ve completed or passed off your tow on the water, just stuff the bag. Don’t bother trying to get it all tight and organized again. For my part I just leave the back sealed but un-wrapped, on top of my spray deck and clip the end to a pocket on my PFD. That way my rope is contained, but I could start another tow in a split second with the least amount of fiddling. In the BCU one way to raise the coaches ire is to be sitting there on the water trying to make your tow rope all pretty again. They dislike it immensely and you will be punished. . .

* There are numerous tow belt systems out there. Just choose the best one for you. I use a North Water. And sadly I get no benies for displaying it here. LOL!!

>> LEARN MORE ABOUT TOWING HERE

I was told recently KW was like the People Magazine of kayaking. I’m not sure that’s a complement. Steve Martin once referred to “People” as “Screw-Up-Your-Life Magazine”. Oh Well, I better start spreading some gossip then. . . So here it is. . .

Rumor has it that Freya Hoffmeister is now working with Rockpool kayaks on the development of two new Greenlandic style fiberglass kayaks! Can you imagine something strangely like her Waterfield Qaanaaq SS with a funky Rockpool paint job?? The rumored new kayaks will be take aparts, so easily shipped to the US. . That means all of us poor saps who could not get our hands on a Waterfield will have another choice! So now if you cold just top it off with Freya’s own signature model Reed Tuiliks . . . Hmmm. Now I wonder how my own top secret half-tuilik sketches will fit into all this??

And while we’re talking about Freya, another little birdie says she’s been clearing out her office to make more room. . . Now why would she do that? I wonder where the nearest airport to her house is anyway?

By the way, here’s what Christmas looks like to a kayaker. . .

* Freya’s Smiles brought to you by Rockpool!! Thanks of course to the woman in black for providing the photos and allowing me to spread gossip. . .