Project Delphin
Published September 30, 2009 | 
Advance glance at the new P&H Delphin to come out sometime around christmas.
Right now the P&H Custom Sea Kayaks new Delphin is a bit of an X-Boat. You have to sneak onto a secret base somewhere in the UK to see one. Well, not really. It feels like it though. Thankfully we have a couple advance shots to share. Now what I want to show you here is the upturned hull. (No skegs in this shot!). The Delphin has a bit of a white water edge for carving in surf and some planing areas as well which should make it a really fun boat. Yet even with the racy hull, the kayak is intended to be a good all around, even “beginners” kayak. We’ll see. Reports are that there will still be modifications. Possibly a change in the rocker and there is that whole skeg thing to think about…
Go Slough
Published September 29, 2009 | 
So deep, so wide, will you take me on your back for a ride
If I should fall, would you swallow me deep inside
– gabriel
In yesterday’s post I mentioned stopping along the roadside to wrangle some apples only to end up cleaning up a bunch of trash. The photo above is from that very spot. What looks like a swamp in the image is part of a vast network of small streams, bogs and sloughs that make up the lower Wisconsin River valley. Somewhere out there past the swamp is the river proper.
The Alien & The Wandering Tome
Published September 28, 2009 | 
I HAVE been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated,
I will believe when it is apparent.
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin…
- the battle of the trees, book of taliesin
Just a few words seem to tie all my recent and approaching days together. Each sub-set of ideas fly around them like ribbons around a single maypole. The holiday adorned children dancing beyond I fear, represent a sanity long gone. Skipping backwards through their common cloud to the foundation left apart, the words I read have little in common; Wisconsin, Scotland, Muir, monster, architect, Wales & fudge. Yet they keep coming up. Together they become one… Continue reading
Posted in My Weird Life, Paddling, Quixotica, Random Thoughts, travel | 
gordon brown, spring green, wisconsin, wisconsin riverConcrete Moose
Published September 26, 2009 | 
don’t know if you noticed, but… your name is on
a lot of quotes in this book, and us crazy humans wrote it,
you should take a look..
– xtc
Talk of double skegs and the sudden appearance of a concrete moose are certainly signs of the end times wherever you may live. Here in the great lakes region we are certainly racing down a steep path to the apocalypse.. Or maybe it’s just the arrival of autumn. Winter after all, IS the apocalypse to more than a handful of northern paddlers. For what it’s worth, I’m collecting evidence that this whole double skeg thing might be bigger than anything Fox or the Weekly World News could have ever imagined.. More on that next week. Continue reading
Paddle Scrabble
Published September 25, 2009 | 
Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of life and the seeds of change were planted
Outside the rain fell dark and slow
– pink floyd
O.K., so I have to give a shout out to Sharon, Alec and the gang since I was so mean to them recently.. oh, and because they used the word “caguole” in their blog which is at least 45 points in paddle-blogger scrabble. (There’s a bonus for using a real words that sound made up outside of the paddling world) Meanwhile I’m still planning to paddle… Well, by planning I mean loosely considering what I’d need to paddle, down the Lower Wisconsin in the next week or so. It always comes down to where the child will go. Yeah, he could go along of course, but as the song says, “to everything there is a season..”. Sometimes it’s the season to leave little Billy at grandmas.
Posted in Kayaks, My Paddling, News & Print, Paddling | Delphin, P&H Kayaks, wisconsin, wisconsin riverjust lose it
Published September 23, 2009 | 
If you want to view paradise / Simply look around and view it / Anything you want to, do it
Wanna change the world? / There’s nothing to it
– pure imagination- willy wanka soundtrack
So I read an article in our local paper where our city leaders are discussing how to improve our river district. Of course they offer the same old, “historic street lamps & office buildings” response. What’s a river district without expensive offices after all!? I’m not saying that’s bad mind you, just a bit limited. So I did something I knew I’d regret and gave a call to our local Alderman to ask him if anyone had thought of the river itself as a draw? The Baraboo has always been a paddling destination waiting for someone who would see it through. Those who have given it a go have always hit the same rock (well lots of rocks actually). The stopper is the 2 mile stretch through the city of Baraboo where the river drops some 4 feet, but often get’s so shallow that it becomes impassable. These are the sort of conditions that some communities have found a little gold mine in developing paddling and white water parks. After a long war of course. Continue reading
Episea Revisited
Published September 22, 2009 | 
Still paddling the Episea in 2009
It was 2006 when we first bought Gryphon his Episea Kayak at the Inland Sea Sea Kayaking Symposium in Washburn, WI. I wrote about that original purchase here. Here we are nearing the end of 2009 and Gryphon, now 8 years old, is still paddling the EPI. The upside is that as each year passes he can better control it. The quality of the boat is great. It’s still in great shape and the bow flotation bag still holds air perfectly. The only problem has been the back hatch cover which screws in tightly but tends to get jammed up by sand and dirt. Oh well. That’s such a minor hang up for a kayak that can take your child through their early paddling years.
Recent Comments