Beach Party

A fun look at kayak safety.

Remember those Dirty Harry movies from the 70's starring Clint Eastwood, where his character always seemed to have a catch phrase for any dangerous situation? As it turns out, Dirty Harry knows quite a bit about safety and kayak fishing. Let's take a closer look at the wisdom embedded in some of his more noteworthy quotations.

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Read more from this blogger: Kayak Fishing Blog

Some good tips on kayak fishing.

Kayak fishing puts all these problems behind you. OK the cost of buying the gear required to go Kayak fishing is quite high. I reckon its cost me about £550 give or take. Compare this to a days Charter fishing at approx £45 that’s 12 trips and my Kayak is paid for, considering these modern Kayaks can last upto 16 years that’s a pretty fair investment in my eyes.

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Read more from this blogger: Kayak fishing

Click through for the Eskimo roll!

The video was shot at an indoor pool and although the quality isn’t great to keep the file size low, I think you’ll find it’s a pretty good way to see the techniques, setup, etc., used in rolling. The instructor is Dave Lowery from Wild River Outfitters, who also runs the Virginia Beach Surf Kayakers web site. There is also a roll or two by Ed Shiller, who runs Wild River’s Touring Company.

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Read more from this blogger: Eskimo Roll Video

Click through for more on the kayak surfing adventure.

Sat on the beach reading my travel books and pondering this and that. Then along came Tommy and Charlie with some kayaks amped up for a late afternoon paddle. We headed off out past the reef and up past Gun beach (because there is a big black gun on it) and pulled up a bay just before 'Two Lovers Point'. We headed into a huge cave - that I had actually zipped in and out of during the race to note down a code word.

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A funny post about a funny newpaperman.

Washington Post writer Angus Phillips spent $100 on a shocking pink Pyranha kayak and drove out to the class III rapids of the lower Gunpowder River, where, he tells us, he came very close to getting a high opinion of himself. That was before the nose of his boat dipped into a hole and he suddenly found himself looking up at the river bottom. Phillips piece makes the roar of the river sound like the song of the Sirens, and he suggests that whitewater wannabes contact the Canoe Cruisers Association, or the Monocacy Canoe Club to learn more about where and when to take their chances.

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Read more from this blogger: Whitewater: East Coast and West

Here's a really great report on kayaking down Lake Carnegie and bunch of nice pictures of the trip.

This past Sunday was such a beautiful day that I just had to pull my 14-foot inflatable catamaran-kayak out of the closet, toss it into the back seat of my Neon, and head a half-mile down the road to Lake Carnegie. Engineered specifically for Princeton’s crew team, Lake Carnegie’s shallow calmness makes it one of the best rowing lakes in the world.

There were a few other kayakers out and about. These two are rowing past the Harrison Street bridge. The “BRING IT ON!” sign is a challenge to those schools who might dare to go up against the Princeton University rowers.

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Read more from this blogger: Communing with nature

Don't laugh now!

If you and, let us say, your sister, are trying to carry a kayak with no handles, such that you must each cradle one end and move along in an ungainly shuffle, it is wise to refrain from cracking jokes at every second step, because otherwise you will have to stop at every third step and hastily lower the kayak to the ground before you drop it from laughing so hard.

It will also take you forever to carry the kayak from the clubhouse to the waterpolo pitch, and everyone will wonder why you took so long.

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Read more from this blogger: A handle-less WoW

Peter Bray from South Wales won a bravery medal for saving the lives of his crewmates on a recent expedition in the Atlantic. His new team are now preparing for a week-long trip in the South Atlantic.

Mr Bray said he hoped to have another try at the voyage, and is also planning a kayak voyage across the 66-mile Bering Straits, between Alaska and Asia.

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Read more from this blogger: Kayak hero's island voyage

In some parts of the country, this is good news:

i recently returned to the USA. And 2 days ago made it back to my home in St. Louis. New Zealand was wicked awesome. I ended up traveling with my friend Tim for a month in our car and it went very well. All around the south island, seeing the sites, whitewater kayaking and rock climbing.

After that I made it to the Bliss-Stick kayak factory on the north island. I worked here for about 3 weeks doing some good ole fashion manual labor of making kayaks. As well I started doing the flash content of their webpage. There have been quite a few things set in motion, and hopefully within the next week some of the major flash changes will go up. You can see the latest snapshots of the work im doing on the site here.

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Read more from this blogger: I'm Back.

No serious damage.

Over the weekend, Little Sis and I went kayaking on Saturday with one of the coaches, so that she could learn how to paddle, and on Sunday afternoon we had our first canoe polo practice. One of my friends from Uni brought three of his friends, so we had enough to play polo with. The wind was blowing a gale so I thought the coach would just give us a training session on land, but noooooo... lol... but he had us use the waterpolo pitch, which is the same size as a canoe polo pitch is supposed to be. It was sheltered enough that surface of the...

Surprisingly enough, only one person got hit in the head by a paddle, even though sometimes we had three or four kayaks all struggling for the ball... not surprisingly, I was the offending player... *sigh*

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Read more from this blogger: I aten't dead

If kids show up on time at 7am, you know you're on to something.

Last year, the shop’s founder and owner Mike Martino, along with his wife Caryn, joined forces with a local marine biology teacher to initiate an informal kayaking program for local high school students. For months, before Hurricane Ivan hit, 15-20 students would show up at Eco-Beach’s doorstep bright and early every Saturday morning, grab a sea kayak, and head for the water.

“They would come back exhausted…sometimes so tired they were practically falling over,” said Martino. “It was great. They got to enjoy nature and, at the same time, build their self-esteem…without spending a penny.”

Martino was amazed that the students showed up time and time again, not to mention at 7 a.m. on a weekend. “These kids were go-getters,” he said. “And, that’s what education is really all about…showing up, trying new things, and being persistent.”

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Read more from this blogger: travelblogo: Nature-based Activities & the Great Outdoors Offer Valuable Lessons

I had no idea the late pope was an avid kayaker:

Over the past few days we've had a lot of great papal trivia. There's the picture of John Paul II skiing; the stories of sneaking off to kayak during his pre-papal days; and the sinister vested interest of CBS News in having the pope die this year (run with it, NRO!).

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Read more from this blogger: PAPAL PRESERVATION