Frickin’ Kayakers
Published December 29, 2011 | 
“Is it worth risking your life for a fish?” Good question from a spokesman for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission a day after authorities rescued 6.. Let that sink in… 6, Again, 6! capsized fisherman from Chesapeake Bay a couple weeks back. [ Read the full story here. ] No wonder there are so many folks who think kayaking is crazy. Well, no. What’s crazy is going out into potentially dangerous situations without any clue how to deal with it if something goes wrong. In the vernacular of the day, “Really?” Continue reading
Caught Up
Published October 12, 2011 | 
Don’t wash the dirt off of your hands, doing the same mistake twice,
making the same mistake twice.
Come on over, don’t be so caught up,
it’s all about compromising. I see problems down the line, I know they’re not mine.
Don’t let the darkness eat you up. – 6pm
October rains remind me that all things are temporary. I tend to walk the trails a lot in October and November. I know I’m running out of time. Sure, I can get out the snow-shoes.. but winter is well, limbo. Winter is the time of year I spend trying to remember what a warm, wet, wind feels like. When late in the evening I sometimes strain to make my mind recall the sound of a thunderstorm or the earthy, tea aroma of a wet, autumn day. Late autumn sometimes feels like the last desperate opportunity to grasp the pulse of life. Continue reading
/ˈskatər SHät /
Published September 2, 2011 |
Someone once said something to the effect that, “art is best appreciated on a full stomach”. It’s an issue of priorities. It’s hard for me to get jazzed up about the “cause du jour” when there are homeless right here in my little town (let alone everywhere else), kids without food, shelter or school supplies, mentally ill having their support funding cut, trash blowing around the parking-lots. . . on and on it goes. These days we’re so scatter shot in our focus, will and determination that it seems like we can’t solve even the most basic problems. I swear the whole herd has gone off the rails. Sorry, I know it’s not a fun subject.. just frustrating…. Needed to vent… vented.
BTW.. the video is from Serj Tankian, formerly of System of a Down.
I Can’t Review The Delphin
Published August 17, 2011 | 
Modesty, propriety can lead to notoriety
You could end up as the only one
Gentleness, sobriety are rare in this society
At night a candle’s brighter than the sun – sting
I can’t review P&H Sea Kayaks new Delphin. Yeah, I did get time to paddle one this summer when I was teaching in Michigan. Thing is, the Delphin is purpose-built. It’s a surfer. In any other conditions it simply will not be at it’s finest. Funny thing though, all the hype around the Delphin has a lot of folks who’ll never actually go surfing salivating, regardless of how it may or may not paddle on flat water. If nothing else, it does show that P&H Sea Kayaks is simply destroying their competitors when it comes to marketing their products. Hey, somebody should say it. In the last couple of years P&H has been dusting everyone in their wake. When you’re talking big waves, P&H is riding it and at the moment, from the cockpit of the Delphin. Continue reading
Posted in Commentary & Rants, Kayaks, Paddling, Quixotica, Reviews | 
Delphin, P&H Kayaks | 
34 CommentsBad, Bad, Naughty Cam
Published August 14, 2011 | 
As a sea kayaking coach I see lots of kayaks & gear on the water each year. I have the opportunity to see how students actually use their gear, how it works for them and how sometimes it really fails. Take these Cam-Clips for instance. I’ve ranted about them in the past, but they never seem to go away either. They’re like a bad dream that just lingers in your memory and ruins your day. Why? Well, the first time I was introduced to these Current Design’s hooky-strappy things, a student was working on a layback roll. When they rolled the kayak, they put their back against the hull, slid a bit, and hooked the shoulder strap of their PFD under the cam lever! They were stuck. It was a really scary moment for them and not a very pleasant introduction to rolling a kayak either. Even after I rolled them up, they couldn’t just sit up. They had to slide back off the clip, (after we figured it out.) then sit up. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that under duress and upside down, a person may never realize they have to slide to their left to get free.. Then what? Continue reading
Posted in Commentary & Rants, Kayaks, Paddling, Quixotica, Safety | Current Designs, Safety | 16 CommentsOne Ditch At A Time…
Published August 9, 2011 | 
Thinking of the movie Blue Velvet yesterday, brought back to me the idea that under the veneer of our normal life often lies a dark, seedy underbelly. These days however, the dark and seedy are much more vocal than they used to be. It’s hard to ignore the calls to gut the Environmental Protection Agency, to roll back clean water regulations here in my state, or to defund programs for the poor, sick and elderly all across the country. It goes on and on. I’m not the least bit surprised that AL Gore went a little off the note cards to call “bullsh*t” on climate deniers during his speech in Aspen. He’s been at this for years, and let’s face it.. It’s been like trying to teach a lemur geometry. When people don’t want to know something, they’ll perform amazing acrobatics not to know it. These days this serious issue, like so many others, has descended into a fruitless game of “gotcha”. It’s frankly a waste of time and energy. When it comes to the environment, the bottom line is that if you are arguing for the right to pollute and pump chemicals into our air.. you’re already on the wrong side of everything decent about humanity, even if global warming were a bunch of hogwash.
O.K. So let me be honest here. I’m dreaming of summer. I’ll admit it. I don’t know what ever came over our silly ancestors as the continued to move north way back in the day. Sure, it was probably summer as they traveled further and further north toward the top of the earth. At first, things probably seemed pretty sweet. What more could you ask for than open fertile land, lots of animals and air conditioning? Yeah, but come November they had to be thinking, “What the hell are we still doing here?” Next thing you know they were all huddled in caves around a dwindling fire and just hoping the meat would hold out. And they stayed?! Idiots! Continue reading →