It’s 8am on Cannery Beach, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. It’s me, a chain smoking heavy equipment operator, and nobody else. He says that no overweight tourists will be at the beach until about 11, and he wants to lift the cannery up off the ground before they get there. By the end of the day, my body and physics degree will both agree that the crane and I have each expended about the same amount of total energy. To which my liberal arts education replies, “but I have been across the sea.”
Tag Archive: Paddling
Jun
11
Volunteers Needed for Grand Rapids Water Festival
Chip Richards of Grand Rapids is in need of volunteers for the Grand Rapids Water Festival He forwarded this message along. I will be there on the water. Please mark your calender for the Grand Rapids Water Festival, Saturday June 20th at Riverside Park. GRWW will be hosting the valet boat coral. People that want …
Jan
20
Eskimo rolling-Form over strength.
My forward forward rolls have been suffering it seems from a lazy form. I finally hit the sweet spot this weekend by really tucking in tight to the fore deck. By not coming as far off the deck of the kayak when I initiate the sweep for my hand roll I was coming up with …
Dec
20
Practice Practice Practice
I spent last Saturday in the pool in my sea kayak. It was a frustrating couple of hours relearning skills. I considered myself someone who spent the time in the seat working on their skills. And there I was having to relearn some of the harder rolls I thought I’d already mastered. I hit maybe …
Nov
18
NRS Toaster Mitts
There are a lot of choices out there for hand-wear: Gloves, mitts, pogies. I’ve had at least three different types of gloves since I started paddling. My Salamander gloves are pretty great most of the time. But gloves for warmth have never been the best option. The inuit knew this, the Norse knew this too. …
Oct
02
Wind, Waves, Wine 2007
This year’s Wind, Waves, and Wine event was moved to Lake Michigan Recreation Area north of Ludington. Blessed with fortune I left work on Friday to arrive at exactly the same time as Henry Davies. We drove over to the beach and quickly assessed that surfing was out, but paddling would happen. We set up …
Sep
19
Wawa, Greenland Style Kayaking Symposium 2007
Doug Van Doren and I arrived in Wawa Ontario midday on Friday. We stepped out of the car to view Rock Island Lodge’s panoramic view of both the Michipicoten River mouth and Lake Superior. The dappled gray rocks, with pock marks of orange lichen and moss stripe the pillowed rock formations the lodge sits upon. …
Jun
30
Norcal Paddling
Thanks to my benevolent benefactor and intrepid guide Chuck Freedman, I was able to paddle not once, but twice on what would normally have been a land based trip to San Francisco. Chuck made a long drive from Reno Nevada with gear to paddle with me. We decided to head out to Santa Cruz and …
Mar
17
Icepaddle 2007, minus the egg mcmuffin
2007 brought in an usual amount of snowfall and cold towards the end of January. This caused a serious amount of ice to build up along Lake Michigan. When the ice builds up towards a mile or so off shore, when it melts the waves from wind across the lake pile it up on shore …
Feb
06
How thick is your ice?
I was running last night in the dark. Led only by the dim blue glow of my headlamp my shoes crunched noisily into the snow. It was the kind of crunch that is painful to hear, because it is like stepping on dry chalk. I tried to run fast to warm up. I could feel …

