Paddle a Scientist
Published January 11, 2008 | 
At this early international Sea Kayaking symposium, paddling experts consider the relative safety of kayaking the southern United States compared to that of northern Australia.
Of course I should probably tell you that this is actually a picture of Barnum Brown & other scientists comparing the skull of a modern crocodile with that of Deinosuchus who was a mighty big croc back in the day when he roamed what is now Big Bend, Texas. The southern United States is of course populated with Alligators and not crocodiles. (What’s the diff’ you wonder? Click here.) See, I can digress with the best of ‘em. Anyway, sea kayaking and science are never that far apart. I was reading an article in Discover Magazine about astronomer David Charbonneau. He was the guy who lead the breakthrough observation of extra-solar planets transiting their home stars. Cool stuff! Well, down in a little corner of a page was one of those little "pop-culture" discription boxes. In it was this. . . "Hobbies: Home beer brewing and sea kayaking". Go fig!??
* update – as jim rightly points out, there are crocs in florida too. 
Smell Ya Later
Published January 10, 2008 | 
Lord, hey,
while you’re down there
lookin’ up my nose,
yeah,
child you’re gettin’ mighty like a rose.
– van morrison
Nothing like an evening in the water to clear your head. The only draw back was forgetting my skirt!! Oh, well regardless of what many new paddlers may have heard, you can roll without a skirt. In fact it’s often easier. However it’s similar to rolling a loaded kayak in that your moves have to be slow and go with the natural motion of the kayak. You can’t really “muscle” a flooded kayak. Something interesting with the Rockpool Alaw Bach is that it really does not want to sit upside down without a paddler in it. Empty it sits a bit on an angle. There is a suprising upside to this behavior, It’s hard to fill with water. Amazingly I could roll all evening without a skirt on the boat and never flood the cockpit more than 50% or less. Now if I sat on the back on the other hand. . . .
I’ve said many times before that spending time just screwing off is as important as “real” practice. I’m always trying to find new ways to roll the boat. You can see from the set up here, that besides trying to avoid the smell of chlorine, I was also holding the paddle near the end. Over time I’ve become quite proficient at rolling no matter where I happen to have a grip on the paddle. Holding it near the end like this is really just a stick roll with the added buoyancy of the rest of the paddle, another good way to work up to a Norsaq roll.
Without the skirt, I figured it was a good time to learn how to roll with one leg out of the kayak. The hard part is staying in when you flip. I tried hooking a toe under the bungees, but in the end, just settled for really gripping the boat under my inside knee. It’s not hard to do, but the recovery is not pretty. You sort of look like a frog strapped to a board.
Click an image below to enlarge
groundhog blues
Published January 9, 2008 | 
Now I’m a walkin’ groundhog, mama and I walks around in my den
Now I’m a walkin’ groundhog, mama and I walks around in my den
Now if I come out and see my shadow,
John I believe I’ll go back in
-groundhog blues, sonny boy williams
I got up this morning and sorted through my email as I waited for the sun to come up. While I don’t get out to paddle too much this year I still seem to spend a lot of time thinking, talking about, or doing something involved with paddling. That suits me just fine when around here the rising sun only comes to reveal how thick the ice is forming in the driveway. It won’t be until sometime late April before the matainance guy at Devil’s Lake State Park finally pulls on his waders to walk out into the cold water to set up the swimming bouys. It will be even later still before the college students working the consessions arrive to drag out the little yellow rental kayaks for another day.
For the moment I’m listening to Sonny Boy Williams and pondering questions such as, Are there enough people in southern Wisconsin interested in traditonal paddling to warrent another shot and an intro class? Each year I get asked this question and I never really know the answer. Traditional paddling seems like something kayaker’s just fall into. It’s hard to rustle up enough folks interested in taking classes around here. On the other hand it’s hard to rustle up enough coaches to teach intro to recreational kayaking. . . Oh well. . .
a leg to stand on. . .
Published January 8, 2008 | 
James Castrission … Photo: Justin Jones
In the last few days I’ve been following along with some articles on James & Justin’s final push. Of course they are starting to feel the effects of the trip. They say their health is deteriorating and they are having a hard time standing. In many ways it’s this last bit that is the most risky part of the whole trip. Still, when they finally do get to sit in the pub with friends and look back at it all, I bet they are going to get a hell of ribbing for the article that called them "Muscle Men".
Read More:
faces in golden rays
Published January 7, 2008 | 
Wake up you sleepy head
Put on some clothes, shake up your bed
Put another log on the fire for me
I’ve made some breakfast and coffee
Look out my window and what do I see
A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me
All the nightmares came today
And it looks as though they’re here to stay
-bowie
Wow, can we be any more inundated by the new election year? It seems like it’s been going on forever and it’s going to go on a long time. Certainly one major theme this year is a decision on vision. Do we look back, stay the same or move forward? You’re not going to catch me digging to deeply into the craziness of it all, but I am enjoying some of the discussions.
Each day we get up and face a new dawn. Certainly we bring elements of yesterday with us, but the dawn does bring with it the opportunity to put yesterday in its place and start again. We can re-envision and in some ways re-define our lives. This is of course the idea we put behind each new year’s resolution. Still, most people who succeed in their dreams realize that goals can really never reach much further than dawn to dusk. The following day we must reacquaint ourselves with our goals and again just make our determination last until we head to bed the following evening. If we can do this each and every day, soon days turn to weeks, turn to months, turn to years. For most of us it’s the only way. One tiny morsel at a time.
“Day by day” is more than just a cliché of course. If we want to lose weight, quit smoking, paddle round an island or even change the whole script of how our life is going, we have to address it each day. Soon after we awake, we have a little conference with ourselves. We ask, “What are we going to do today to work toward our goal”. Once we have those things defined we can do them and move on. Remember we only have to do them today. We’ll talk about tomorrow, well, tomorrow. With this in mind even our failures and slips are contained. The can be locked in the box of the day. Tomorrow we wake up right back on track. Then as they say, “Time flies” and suddenly you are achieving your goal.
Chicago Police officer Nial Funchion set a goal for 2008 worth noting. He plans to swim around Lake Michigan (about 1,000 miles) beginning on June first. He is looking for kayakers & clubs to help guide and and keep an eye on him along the way. Of course if anyone has a spare bed along the way he’d appreciate that too. You can reach him through his website, Connect To The Journey. On his blog Nial explains;
“Lately I feel that steamroller moving at a high rate of speed right on my heels, as I am sure others do also … It is a battle to stay ahead, to dream, to go against the current, to ENVISION, to see your life as something to investigate and get into to see where it fits.
It is a battle. For me I see it just like that. And for every moment I act disciplined, I feel I earned the right to continue. . . That is how I feel; that is what grabbed me. It is a beautiful battle, life.” – Nial Funchion
So with the sun coming up and the big goal hung like a poster on the wall, I can look in the mirror and ask, “what can I do . . just to make it through today.
for love nor money
Published January 5, 2008 | 
You are standing on a beach one unremarkable afternoon. Somewhere in a lost thought you find yourself thinking of distant land unseen on the other side. In just a little firecracker of a thought you think, “There’s got to be a way.”.
Delmarva co-founder Cindy Cole passes away
Published January 4, 2008 | 
Dubside-Cindy-Kampe-Robin Oct 07
The year begins on a sad note in the paddling community with the loss of Delmarva Retreat co-founder & founding QajaqUSA board member Cindy Cole, after a long battle with cancer. Greg Stamer writes, "Cindy brought to her life and her kayaking a sparkling spirit, humble yet strong. Many of us in the traditional kayaking community, and those of us who were lucky enough to have been her friend, have been strongly influenced and touched by her life..". He also notes, "Cindy was very influential in building interest in Greenland-style kayaking in the northeastern US, and was among the "first wave" of kayakers who eagerly began learning, practicing and later teaching Greenland technique as John Heath’s videotapes became available in the late eighties and early nineties.". She along with Greg were the first US citizens to compete in the Greenland National Sea Kayaking Championships in 2000. Cindy and her husband Charlie owned Millpond Paddlers in Ocean view , Delaware. Our sympathy and support go out to her family.
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