Launching Woes

January in my neck of the woods always presents new challenges to the kayaker. In the photo above, the slowly growing ice means getting out beyond it to the more or less open water will be frought with problems. The ice near the shore is composed of small pieces of ice about the size of pies. They impede the progress of your boat, yet are not large enough to support your weight. Getting through them is nearly impossible.

Worse yet, returning to shore through the 'pies' is even worse, especially in the case in the picture. At the time it was taken, the wind was blowing the ice from left to right forcing one to chose an entry point upwind. If you were lucky, you'd manage to reach the shore near your car as you swept by, but more commonly, you sat there in your kayak, struggling as the landing beach slowly disappeared around the corner.

Far, far better, not to launch in this spot! Find a beach where there is no ice shelf to cross. Safer, easier and your chances of being home for dinner increases dramatically!

Tow Bag Troubles

One of the clinic sessions I took while at the Palmer Rapids kayak weekend was 'Rescues'. I wanted to practice using my North Water tow line, so the instructor agreed. We'd all practice a few tows and then we'd get rescued.

At first all went well, but then problems began to surface. My boat has a rudder. The rudder is operated via cables which attach by bolts secured with split-pins. One of these split-pins snagged the tow line rope... Now in a class, this is an easy thing to remedy, but out in a real tow situation, maybe it wouldn't be. Maybe the only solution would be to attempt to retrieve the down-stream end of the rope and try pulling it loose, or, in the worse case, I'd have to wet exit and free it by hand. No amount of paddle prodding would loosen the thing from the cockpit.

My next practice tow went well until I released the tow line using the quick-release. The bag with the extra tow line slipped off my waist as I paddled ahead and dragged along the rear deck where it then got caught in the rudder mechanism! Once again, I was unable to unfasten the bag and had to be 'rescued' by my tow person. Next time, when I undid the tow belt, I tossed the bag off to the side insuring it was free of my boat.

Another paddler used the bag before stuffing all the line back into the bag. After hooking on to her tow and paddling forward, she discovered the line had somehow managed to wrap itself around her boat making it impossible to tow anyone. Once again, the line had to be untangled by the towed boat, not something you'd want to do in a real-life situation.

It pays to practice with the so-called safety equipment we buy. The purchase alone does not guarantee you'll be safer with it on board. Knowing how best to use the stuff can be critical! Get out and play. You'll be glad you did!

Say It Ain't So

I bought myself a new waterproof camera last week. My older camera, a Pentax Optio 43WR is now five years old and going strong, but I just know, I'll be screaming you know what when it suddenly decides to let me down. The new camera, a Panasonic DMC-TS1 has almost three times as many pixels and shoots video in AVCHD format which I like. The picture above is one of the first shots. 'Blue Jay at Rest'... LOL

But that's not today's subject. Yesterday I finally remembered to take my GPS device out for a paddle. The day was chilly with a light breeze, so I decided to have the GPS give me an idea of how fast I paddle using various strokes (I use a homemade Greenland style stick). It turns out my everyday cruising stroke moves me along at 6.0km/h. If I turn into the wind, my speed was reduced to around 5.8km/h. Turning down wind, it bumped up to around 7.4km/h. This was about what I had anticipated given what I know from past experience. So far, so good.

When paddling around Manitoulin Island a few years ago, we encountered days when we'd paddle into large waves and steady headwinds. After several hours using the same stroke, muscles screamed for a break, but being far from shore, stopping wasn't an option. I began experimenting with a variety of strokes which used slightly different muscle groups in different ways and found one stroke which I particularly liked as it seemed to relax my muscles and move the boat ahead with less effort. Yesterday I had the GPS examine it. I was shocked! My speed dropped to 5.7km/h consistently! I played with getting everything right, but the speed seldom reached 6km/h and never went above it as I thought it would. Not so good, but I still like the stroke a lot and use it when the going gets tough. The way the paddle cuts into the water feels so right, it's hard to think it isn't faster!

Putting more torso rotation and stomach muscle into my strokes would bring the speed up slightly above 6.0km/h, and using the 'canted' stroke with more emphasis into pushing down on the paddle with the upper arm, would move the kayak along at up to 6.8km/h consistently and up to 7.1km/h for spurts. This is clearly the fastest stoke I have in my arsenal.

It was an interesting day on the water!