kayaking stuff

Swim with the sharks?

2012-01-02T12:43:00.000-08:00

My friend Richard loves swimming. Kayaking together in the archipelago of his native Sweden (where he owns Point65) I've known him strip to his shorts on impulse and sprint, whooping with anticipation up the face of an island to leap from the clifftop into deep water, just for the fun of it! Recently in Florida he decided to cool off in the waters of Boca Grande Pass.

Feeding the sharks?

With a look of disdain at the sign warning of strong currents (Richard loves currents and waves) he strode toward the water. True a swimmer was swept away by the current and drowned here, but the water's warm and inviting, and it's easy to see which way the current is flowing. What could be more inviting?

Boca Grande Pass, current warning

But as Richard prepared for his dip, a passing local approached him with some quiet words of advice. She suggested caution for a reason unrelated to the current. The sign doesn't mention sharks.

Sharks have been known to attack here, even in the shallows. But, I hear you ask, aren't there sharks all around the Florida coast, even in the shallows, and yet there are people swimming all the time without being bitten! Even though about half of all shark attacks in USA occur in Florida, in 2011 there were only 14 reported shark attacks in the entire state in the whole year. from sharkattacksurvivors.com The chances of even being nibbled at are infinitesimally small.

Well, it's true: few people actually get bitten by sharks even when they swim all year round. Humans probably are not the tastiest meal for a fish. But Boca Grande Pass is a rather special place... It's a place where tarpon gather to spawn.

brown pelican above tarpon

Tarpon can grow to 5-8 feet long and weigh 80-280 pounds. Boca Grande Pass is "the place" to go angling for tarpon. Catching a tarpon with rod and line is fine sport fishing; catch and release because tarpon don't make such good eating... for humans. However, it's not uncommon for an angler to bring a tiring 100 pound tarpon close to the boat and to finally land only the head. Sharks, especially hammerheads and bull sharks, are not slow to nip at a weary tarpon on a line. And they gather here in their thousands when there are tarpon about.

So if tarpon grow to 8 feet long, how big are the fish that eat them? The world record for the largest hammerhead shark caught goes to a shark landed in Boca Grande pass in 2006. It weighed 1,280 pounds. Now stuffed and harmless it is on display at Mote Marine, Sarasota. motemarine.org Mote is the perfect place to learn about marine creatures and what they eat before you test the waters.


Stuffed hammerhead shark

Richard is no fool. he's a good swimmer, but he changed his mind about swimming in Boca Grande Pass, just in case. Since there were no reported shark attacks on kayaks in Florida in 2011, and there are some great places to kayak... perhaps a glance at my "Guide to Sea Kayaking in Southern Florida" (Globe Pequot Press) might offer some good alternatives?

available from nigelkayaks store

Escape to Blake

2011-10-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite viewpoints of and from Seattle has always been from the Alaska Way viaduct that ran overlooking the piers of Elliott Bay. Passing through Seattle on my shortest way home from the airport I always looked forward to the rejuvenating view to one side of the steep city streets and tower buildings, with to the other side a spectacular panoramic view of the piers, docks and beyond toward the Olympic Mountains.

Demolition of the viaduct began this week. The city plans to replace the aging structure with a hopefully earthquake-proof toll-tunnel to by-pass the city center by 2016. Then my route will likely follow the dreary I-5 corridor. But there is an alternative way to experience the wide panorama without going through Seattle.

Out across Elliott Bay and past the peninsula of West Seattle is the small tree-covered Blake Island.

From Seattle's Golden Gardens Park in northwest Seattle, Blake Island is just a short journey by kayak.

A lighthouse-hopping mostly coastal route takes you past West Point lighthouse in Discovery Park, across the mouth of Elliott Bay to Alki Point lighthouse, then over the narrow channel to arrive at Blake Island.

A quieter more direct alternative down the center of Puget Sound from West Point lighthouse leads directly past the south end of Bainbridge Island to Blake; quiet that is apart from boat traffic which includes the occasional container ship bound to or from Seattle or Tacoma, and ferries crossing the sound.

If you're lucky you might spot a passing orca or two.

Blake Island is unbelievably calm compared to the mainland; an oasis of peace within sight of the city. A state park since 1959, the only development is at the northeast corner. Here is the Tillicum resort, with its boat docks and the largest of the island's three camp grounds.

Ceramic artist Kristin Nelson of krikristudio

The rest of the island, logged of its forest in the mid-1800's at a time of strong timber demand from San Francisco, has grown back into what might be described as a wonderful woodland park. Through this woodland meander miles of trails, including the round-the-perimeter trail of about 4 miles.

Black tailed deer

At the base of the spit on the west side is the second largest camp ground. Boat moorings offer a mostly sheltered tie-up a few yards offshore the main camp sites.

Photographer Joel Rogers sets his tent

A more exposed area of the spit is reserved for kayakers and canoeists and is part of the Puget Sound water trail. It's not wilderness, but it is a treat and retreat!

Water trail camp sites at the spit

Sunrise over Seattle

"In the view" between Blake Island and Seattle

Whale Ears; Bones from a Faeroe Beach.

2011-05-25T14:48:00.001-07:00

In 1980 I revisited the Faeroe Islands with a group of kayakers from the south of England. The Faeroe or "Sheep Islands" lie out in the Atlantic roughly halfway between Scotland and Iceland. With big swell that year, coinciding with peak tides, we had some wild rides through the tidal rapids between the islands and around the headlands. But that's why we'd come. With the constriction of the mid-Atlantic tides the water accelerates to 10 miles per hour. Even the lightest breath of wind can produce spectacular white water.

Returning to Torshavn after two weeks, adrenalin appetite sated for now, Drew heard about a whale kill. Some 230 pilot whales from a much larger pod had been herded by small boats into the channel between Streymoy and Eysteroy, to a beach near Havalvik, a town whose very name means "Whale Bay". It was late in the day, but anxious to see, we drove there.

The killing, thankfully, was already over. The whales had been hauled ashore with ropes and now lay on the beach all around the bay in the half-light like a fleet of dark upturned curraghs. We could see the deep cut behind each head which severed the spinal cord to kill the whale. The water must have blazed red with blood.

Each 20-30-foot-long whale had since been disemboweled. The several long cuts needed to open the belly revealed the thinness of the skin, and the thickness of the pinky-white blubber immediately beneath it. These cuts, someone explained, prevented gases building up inside the body cavity. People with buckets were reaching inside the still-warm bodies to pull out the liver and kidneys, which by ancient law belong to anyone who cared to take them. Each whale now had a number carved into its skin to keep tally, the number gleaming white from the underlying blubber.

There was little activity now, save for a few boats zigzagging against the tidal stream in search of any whales that might have sunk after killing.

Dead pilot whales sink, which is the reason they must be so carefully herded to a beach before slaughter. Ironically the so called "right whale" was named simply because it floated after death, so it was the "right whale" to hunt. Whales that would sink were the wrong ones to hunt, unless you could get them to the beach before killing them, as in the Faeroe Islands.

When we had seen enough we returned quietly to Torshavn.

Early next morning Drew hitchhiked back to Hvalvik to see what would happen to the whales. He returned with the surprising news that there had been nothing to see. During the night all the whales had been butchered and the meat and blubber taken away. The entrails and bones had also been disposed of, leaving the beach clean. It seemed remarkable that so much could be done in just a few hours, but I suppose the meat would spoil if left for long.

Meat and blubber is divided around the district by an old and complex system. (see Kenneth Williamson's book "The Atlantic Islands" (1948) for a good description). Blubber is nowadays usually refrigerated and eaten raw, while the meat is frozen, or traditionally dried in strips under the eaves of the house. Hard as bone, these cudgels make ideal provisions for coastal and offshore fishing trips. I tasted slices pared from such a piece with Trondur Patursson, the Faeroese artist and expedition adventurer, at his home, sampling it as he recommended with a piece of raw blubber. It was easy to eat; rich and warming. Patursson took such supplies with him on a skin boat that crossed the Atlantic when he accompanied Tim Severin to retrace the voyage of Saint Brendan in the 1970's. (You can read the story in "The Brendan Voyage" by Tim Severin.)

Revisiting the beach at Hvalvik some years later I spotted a curiously-shaped white stone just an inch and a half long. Perhaps it was a shell? I picked it up. It was heavy for its size, too dense to be bone. It was polished smooth. Turning it in my fingers I was struck by its odd shape. From one angle it appeared like a carving of a shiny bald head with two eye holes peering from the partial shelter of two over-sized hands. A small hole the other side seemed to spiral inward with a pitted texture like octopus suckers. Was it carved? It didn't seem likely. Perhaps it was a fossil. I slipped it into my pocket to look at later.

Farther along the beach I found another, almost identical but a mirror image of the first. Now I searched more carefully! Soon I had a pocketful of pieces of two shapes, the second a distorted "L" shape. They clacked together like stone. So what were they? Whale ear bones! Whale ear bone is the densest of all bone.

So why is whale ear bone so dense? Hearing is all about what happens at the interface between a fixed heavy object and lighter objects that vibrate with sound waves. In humans the sound waves travel through air, which is much less dense than our bodies. The vibrations pass via the ear drum through little ear bones to move the liquid in our inner ear. The movement of the liquid relative to the ear bone stimulates the nerve messages to our brain.

But whales receive sound through water, which has similar density to their body. The whale vibrates with the water. For a whale to hear, something must vibrate less. It's a little like a seismograph frame that vibrates with the earth movements in an earthquake. The heavy weight suspended within the frame vibrates far less, so the instrument can show the relative movement.

A whale operates a little in the same way. The dense ear bone vibrates less than the rest of the whale. Vibrations are transferred via fat pads to the liquid of the inner ear, where the nerves detect the relative movement.

(You can read the original 1980 story about the Faeroe Islands at nigelkayaks

A Touch of Silver; Canoeing the Silver River Florida

2011-03-06T23:31:00.000-08:00

When winter draws to an end in Florida it's a good time to paddle to a spring. This time it's Silver Springs; the source of the Silver River. We start at a nearby put-in, just a few miles from the spring head, slipping from eddy to eddy to avoid the current.

Close to the water lily pads and the swamp cypress knees is an ideal place from which to view wildlife. Not that the creatures here pay much heed to a group of canoeists. And there are about eight of us paddling solo canoes, from Sweetwater Kayaks Florida, from San Diego, from Seattle and New England, and a few other places. Several have been learning technique from Phil who has come over from England to teach… and to soak up the rays!

An anhinga crouches on a low branch, ready for take-off as someone pushes along underneath. Phil calls a warning. Anhinga typically squirt before take-off and it's no fun being hit!

Phil is looking forward to seeing monkeys. Rhesus monkeys were introduced here to add to the jungle-like atmosphere by the resort at Silver Springs, some say for a film. Several troupes of them range through the trees along the bank, occasionally biting a tourist or snatching sandwiches from the unwary. I keep a cautious distance from them while we watch the crazy antics of a group of youngsters overhead. The watchful mothers growl a warning.

Monkeys are not the only creatures to deserve a little respect. Alligators sun themselves on the banks, and lurk like logs in the floating weed. They're so well camouflaged that sometimes one will erupt form the undergrowth and crash into the river, startling us as we pass just feet away. I can only imagine how quickly alligators can snatch their prey. Turtles and wading birds are everywhere along the banks and on logs and branches by the water. I watch a little blue heron stilting across a raft of floating vegetation seemingly unaware that one of the logs in the raft was a 'gator.

Kristin and Phil peer down at a catfish

Little blue heron

Deer move quietly in the woods near the shore. When they swim, they risk being grabbed by alligators.

A 'gator hauls out on a log in the sun

A turtle suns itself, but never relaxes its guard

The top of the river is a series of deep pools, and there really is nowhere further to paddle. The river begins here, gushing out from the rock far beneath us. The water is so clear it's easy to see the bottom, which appears a clear pale blue. There are some statues down there, once part of a film set. The water is clear as air. We can see the tops of the statue heads from the surface.

Jen Kleck of Aqua-Adventures, San Diego, sits above a blue spring.

When we turn to head downstream, thankful the current will finally be in our favor, the wind perversely begins to gust against us, rattling the dry palm fronds on the shore and downing some loose branches, and it doesn't let up. But after a warm day with no biting flies, a few puffy white clouds adrift in a wide blue sky above fresh new leaves sprouting on the trees, I'm not complaining!

All too soon it's time to leave Florida for sunny Seattle... but I'll be back! And if you're interested,
Sweetwater Kayaks runs adventures in Florida year-round from St Petersburg.

A sideways glance at British kayaking news from 1967

2010-08-27T22:06:00.000-07:00

In 1967 the British Canoe Union (BCU) magazine “Canoeing in Britain” published a Christmas competition with a prize of a copy of each of “Byde’s Books”. (In 1960 Alan Byde had become just the second person ever to be appointed Senior Canoeing Coach by the British Canoe Union (B.C.U.). I’d better explain that in Britain a “canoe” was, and sometimes still does refer to both canoe and kayak. More about Alan later…

Alan Byde at his home in New Zealand 2006

In a country where people place bets on hounds chasing hares at up to 45 miles per hour... albeit electric hares... in 1967 a number of people wrote their dismay at a somewhat slower hare. The prominent sea kayaker Chris Hare, on returning from an expedition to Greenland where he had hunted from his kayak with Greenlanders, attempted to gain support for the introduction of seal hunting from kayaks in UK. (no.. not electric seals...)

Meanwhile Colin Mortlock, (who later led the expedition in Norway, 1975, for which the Nordkapp paddle and kayak were designed) described kayaking Welsh white-water rivers in flood.

A 1967 advertisement for a sea kayak, the "Wessex Sea Rapier", demonstrated its on-land portability by showing it on the roof of a Morris 1,000 (1,000 cubic centimeters... and that's the engine not the cab)… a car that originally had little lighted orange pointers that swung out like arms from the supports between the side windows to indicate the direction of a turn! I'd like some on my kayak! In 1967, that fiberglass Sea Rapier cost just 36 pounds and 15 shillings… With today’s poor US dollar exchange value that’s about 74 dollars…

The 1967 magazine columns were full of quirky little revelations, such as “A Canadian is not really a sea going canoe”… and that by September 1967, two people had passed the "Advanced Canadian examination"… (You really have to look closely at these Canadians nowadays!)

Next… “The Senior coach is on a par with the Gold Medalist, and is a gentleman to be reckoned with” (Any women reading this?) This begs to be brought together with the declaration; “To all but a rhinoceros it must be obvious that the only place to learn to roll is the swimming baths – in this country anyway.” One can only imagine that the author had spotted the second appointed "BCU Senior (Rhino) Coach" on his back in his garden in Wolverhampton. This was apparently not an advanced Canadian exam!

In 1967, Hans Klepper died. He was the son of one of the original tailors who produced the first folding Kleppers in 1905 to speed up trips from the mountains. Hans was associated with the design of the Klepper Arius in which Dr Hans Lindemann crossed the Atlantic. Skipping through the manufacturing processes from folding kayaks to plastic, “the first thermoplastic kayak” was displayed at the annual boat show in 1967. And from kayaks to paddles, Dave Mitchell (who made "Mitchwood" paddles in UK and now owns Mitchell Paddles in USA) won silver medal for slalom kayak in the 1967 world championships. And in the realm of competition, the Atlantic beaches of Bude suffered the annual invasion of competitors for the week-long surf kayaking event.

In this context, back to Alan, from the start of this piece… Alan wrote a great (truly) book titled “Living Canoeing” which published in 1969 and according to Alan was started in 1967. It is a classic book, with content mostly valid today. I can see how later writers have likely been influenced by the style of line drawings that illustrate many of the technical aspects, and by the content of the Sea Kayaking sections of the book. Not Byde’s first, or last writing achievement, but possibly his finest. Returning to the photo of Byde upside down in a kayak on his lawn, you can see similar images (in fact rolling sequences) in my own “Kayaking; a beginner’s guide” and “Nigel Foster’s Sea Kayaking”... I've picked up a technique or two from him. But perhaps it was not his aversion to being called a rhino that drove Alan Byde to New Zealand. Maybe when he was sitting in his back yard underneath his kayak he was simply preparing himself for living "down under".

Lake Ozette

2010-08-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

Whisky16 on Lake Ozette

red willow roots dangle in the lake

gentians

heading for the trail head

boardwalk trail

tree burned hollow

Hollow red cedar log

A slow-moving yellow slime mold explores the forest floor in search of food

The Olympic Peninsula, which defines the northwest tip of Washington State, is home to the Makah tribe whose land includes Tatoosh Island at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca; a great kayaking area. For a couple of thousand years there was a Makah village site on the Pacific coast at Cape Alava, south of the Makah village of Neah Bay. Part of that village was buried by a mudslide around 1700. Storms in 1970 began to expose artifacts that had been engulfed by the slide, and excavation uncovered six long houses and more than 55,000 artifacts.

The Makah Cultural and Research Center (museum) at Neah Bay has a great display of these artifacts, including canoes, tools and fine cedar bark fiber baskets.

Familiar with the magnificent coastline Kristin and I determined to explore somewhere we'd not seen before; Lake Ozette, third largest lake in Washington State. A narrow strip of forest stands between the lake and the ocean.

High pressure clamping a damp marine layer of low cloud and fog to the coast had finally moved, freeing the coast to hot dry weather!

A circuit of the lake in our Point65 Whisky16s found us dodging for shade, and discovering brilliant red willow roots dangling in the lake, deep blue gentian flowers in the lakeside meadows, and snaking tree roots where higher lake levels or rougher weather had eroded the shore between the trees.

A trail leads from a half-hidden landing place into the semi-darkness of temperate rain forest. A crude bouncing boardwalk leads two miles to the Pacific, threading between the trees and above the channels and streams.

Finally we broke through the deep undergrowth onto a pile of bleached logs, and beyond to a sun-baked sand beach. It was hotter than I've ever experienced on the Washington coast, so we soon plunged back with relief into the shade beneath the dense canopy of forest. Back at the lake the breeze was brisk, whipping up little breakers that kept us pleasantly cool with spray for the remainder of our circuit of the lake.

Next day we took a different board walk hike from our camp site near the Ranger Station through the forest to the ocean.

There is another route from the same start place that reaches the beach three miles north from the one we took... so we hiked the beach and followed the other route back.

Since the weather was so great and there were almost no bugs, after dark we lay on our backs in the open watching the Perseid meteorite shower... shooting stars blazing across a star-studded sky!

(by the way... slime molds actually do move around... I wasn't joking! They're really interesting creatures!)

A strange spider-like monster above our heads... ( a "Forks vampire spider"?)


Sun dried sea-life.

Rocks off the coast make it a graveyard for ships

Low tide rock pools teem with life...

including sea anemones

the islands offshore are part of the marine reserve

higher paths lead offer high tide escape routes.

Kristin takes a dive into the lake to wash off the salt... and cool off

Return journey... ferry across Puget Sound approaches Seattle

The end of a fun escape!
nigelkayaks.com

Stepping Stones of Ungava and Labrador

2010-01-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

The new book "Stepping Stones of Ungava and Labrador" by Nigel Foster (Outskirts Press) has just been released!

Last night at an impromptu dinner party a friend's house I was asked to read out loud from the book one particularly harrowing section when Kristin and I were confronted face to face by a polar bear. Reading the story out loud brought me right back to the kayaking trip, in a different way than when relating it at a slide presentation to the Tacoma Mountaineers Club a week ago. With both story-telling and reading, you adjust the pace and emphasis to develop the tension in the story, responding to audience reaction. Story-telling during a slide presentation, I draw the story from my memories; from the images in my head. Reading last night, the story was presented to me as written; it was a direct input, and as I read I found myself creating mental images from the text.

So what about the polar bears? I didn't see any the first time I attempted the journey along the uninhabited northern section of the Labrador coast in 1981. But that time I traveled south from Iqaluit along Baffin Island's Frobisher Bay, crossed Hudson Strait and spent only 8 days in northern Labrador. When I returned to northern Labrador with Kristin Nelson we had 16 close sightings, and many more sightings of what were almost certainly bears. Not enough data for any conclusion. But in correspondence with Neil Burgess from Newfoundland, who was leading a research study into the impact of PCBs (discussed in "Stepping Stones") on breeding sea birds in the Saglek area of Labrador, he declared that his number of bear sightings in 2007 on the islands in Saglek Bay were dramatically more than in 1999. He continued..."I had a chance to talk about it with a couple of polar bear biologists who were doing a helicopter survey of Labrador polar bears in 2007. Their speculation was that climate change was disrupting the normal migration patterns of the bears. Normally in late winter the bears move south over the sea ice from Baffin Island and along the Labrador coast to the area where harp seals have their pups on the ice in early spring. When that is over, the bears migrate north on the ice back to Baffin Island. Now the sea ice is melting before the bears can get back to Baffin and they end up swimming ashore in Labrador. Folks in Nain tend to agree with this."

That trend does little to invite kayakers to explore the coast described in "Stepping Stones", at least not camping in the way we did, and especially not in the northernmost section which has recently become the Torngat Mountains National Park

But polar bears make up just one aspect of travel in Labrador. The area is fascinating for its prehistory, with evidence of population going back 7,000 years. Historical evidence from Vikings, European fishermen, Moravian missionaries, Hudson's Bay trading stations and medical missions, early exploratory flights, and radar tracking stations give the area a depth of fascination for me. Considering the phenomenal tidal conditions of Ungava Bay, the characteristic fog-swathed mountains of northern Labrador, the ground-hugging tundra vegetation and the night-time dancing ribbons of green aurora borealis, I admit it was the place that attracted me. But after completing the trip I realize that it was those few people that we met in Ungava and Labrador that made our trip rich!

(You can buy (or order) "Stepping Stones of Ungava and Labrador" softback or hardback from your local bookstore, or buy online from any of a number of web stores.... or you can buy from us at the Nigel Foster Kayak Store.)

Swimmers in Venice

2009-07-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Windy Vogalonga.

In all the 35 years of the "Vogalonga" (the "Long Row"… of 30 kilometers) festival in Venice, they say 2009 was the windiest yet! That's the word on the streets… many of which in Venice are under water! Numerous boats capsized and there were dozens of swimmers (it's warm water). But drama aside, it was a very fun event! We all met up the day before at Capalonga, a camp-ground about an hour's drive from Venice, to fit out and load our kayaks onto a trailer in readiness for the early morning ride to town. Capalonga has classy rental kayaks. Giorgio showed us the route on the map, which loops around the Venice lagoon, and explained the timetable.

Next morning in Venice we threaded our adventurous friend Karen Darke from her wheelchair into her kayak, and Kate and Alex into their double, feeding the kayaks beneath and between long rowing shells and thrashing oars down a steep drop to the water. It’s the hardest part of the day, when everyone tries to launch at the same time, leaving just enough time to paddle through the canals to the start at the entrance to the Grand Canal by St Mark's Square.

A cannon booms, signaling the start, and the excitement carries through the air as everyone pulls away toward the north. The big flags on the boats and the skirts of the women standing rowers pull and flap in the wind. There are so many boats it looks as if you could walk from deck to deck from Venice to Lido. And some people do look as if they are walking… Venice is noted for stand-up rowing and there are a lot of gondolas. It's a natural development when the canals are so narrow; the oars angle steeply into the water instead of reaching low and wide. And of course it's an advantage to be facing forward, rather than looking behind like these rowers in rowing shells that almost run me over when I pause to take a photo. But today the gondolas are having a difficult time. They are flat-bottomed with shallow draught and offer a lot of windage.

Our course loops out past muddy banks to the town of Burano where all the houses are brightly painted in different colors. I hear every household uses a different color scheme. It's a town renowned for hand-made lace. We've been plugging away against the wind all the way so far, maybe for 15 kilometers, but as this is the turning point we’ll soon have the wind at our backs. We pause for a snack in the shelter of a narrow canal. It's not relaxing; the wind catches us, and local boats are constantly squeezing past. Although the festival has attracted participants (6,000 this year!) of every nationality, right now we have a just a mixture of English (Kate and Alex) and Swedish (Roland and Britta, who we have fun paddling with all over the world, and Elizabeth), with scarcely a word of Italian between us to offer in apology.

Back in the procession, we pass a barge handing out bottled water and bananas and cruise through sheltered waterways past abandoned islands. The lagoon has a history of man-made islands claimed from mud-banks that goes back for more than 2,000 years! But the walls that circle an island are only permanent while the islanders are there to maintain them. When an island is abandoned, the walls are eventually breached by the sea, and the lapping waves gradually wash the island away until all that is left is a mud bank.

We run into more open water, following a "road" bordered by lines of stakes that show the position of the shallows. The strong wind, plus a little contrary tidal flow, creates an awkward sea that sends boats broaching without warning, and it's all I can do to avoid collisions. But we reach the shelter of canals again at the brick-walled Murano. This is the town famous for its glass-making. The famous Venetian glass-makers were moved here in 1291 because of the danger of fire from their furnaces. Apart from all the fancy glass vases and mirrors, tiles for the mosaics on the fancy palaces in Venice come from here, as do the spectacular blown-glass chandeliers that are shipped all over the world. It's tempting to stop, but we leave Murano to follow the markers back to Venice, finally turning a corner past several swamped boats and water littered with floating oars and gear. Not every boat made it back, but here the canal forms a bottleneck, and there's almost nowhere to go, the boats are crammed together so tightly!

By the time we reach the spectacular Grand Canal, we have plenty of room again! Bridges are lined with cheering crowds, and there are shouts of encouragement from every building! We pass beneath Rialto Bridge, the stone bridge with all the shops on it, and we're on the home straight. Kristin eggs Kate along

with a question; "We're nearly there, but you can stop here if you like and take that canal back to the car…" Kate, weary now, retorts "No way! We get a medal if we finish? I'm going to get there if I have to swim!"

So the DoubleShot makes it to the finish! Kate and Alex collect their medals and certificates (so do we) and we cruise gently back to find Giorgio and Mauritzia, and Karen and Gabrielo, and carry the kayaks back to the trailer.

Next morning the papers describe scenes of disaster. There are swamped boats, swimmers and tales of collisions and strong wind. But we can laugh about it and relax back in the comfort of Capalonga, with a week of kayak tours, visits, restaurants and local wine ahead… The sun is warm. Life is sweet!

(Check out last years Vogalonga on Nigel's web-site)

Bacchanalian Baja

2009-04-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

Kayaking without reason

This was a kayaking excursion but as with most good kayaking adventures... it's not just about the paddling. This tale also involves a burro in disguise... (no, that's not REALLY a zebra!)... and a critical volume of tequila (nobody knows exactly how much)

And in the good tradition of Aqua-Adventures adventures... (There HAVE been others... adventures... well, traditions too...) there was more to it behind first glance. Following festivities at a local bar/restaurant on March 31st (maybe I'll elaborate on those later...) had strayed beyond midnight, one person (I'll call her Jen to protect her identity) hatched the grand plan to open a zoo in a vehicle belonging to the Johnson kayak reps. This plan meant capturing wild animals from the plains of Mexico, and transporting them down the hill to the campground... starting with... yes, a zebra! It was dark... we didn't see the sign!

I have to say that I was amazed by the courage of AC-DC style rock singer Phil Hadley of England... who had earlier jolted the whole bar-full of youngsters onto the dance-floor with his inflammatory frontmanship... as he bent over to check out both ends of the zebra in the dark to figure out firstly which end was the front, and secondly whether the animal was male or female... I've always had a healthy respect for teeth and hooves... and the rest of the arsenal, so to speak. Brave man!

The zebra was tethered by a long rope... but didn't seem to want to move an inch from where she (Phil decided) stood. (Video clip by Russell Farrow... but don't tell Claudia)

It was then... in the silence of the wide plains of Mexico... quite close to the silent village... above the silent bay... that the zebra began to bray! The deafening foghorn of a sound echoed around the valley.

Two things then happened. First, almost every one of the brave hunters standing around the zebra sprinted off into the dark, followed by the sound of tumbling and crashing as they discovered the edge of the tall dusty bank down to the road. Second, the two remaining with the braying zebra (myself included) ran out breath through laughing so hard we became almost totally helpless.

Next day some of the group remained in disguise, just in case they could be identified...

Under the circumstances, if (Jen) had managed to borrow the burro, she could have ended up in a Mexican jail... which was exactly what happened to one of the two Johnson reps on the way back across the border, after the next, and our last, morning of paddling in Baja. (Jen), back at San Diego, received the phone call. Their vehicle had been impounded, one of them detained, perhaps indefinitely, leaving the other stranded at the border without transport. As (Jen) wrote down the details on her note-pad in dismay during the five minute phone call, she repeated out loud no less than three times for the dazed rep at the other end... yes... the date? Again? Yes... April first.

Oh and the other video clip? (Jen) kindly lent me her Point65 Whisky16 for the week... but with the repeated plea "PLEASE don't damage it". Of course, I love rock-hopping and playing in rough water... and I love the challenge of doing it without contacting rock... unlike someone else in her other fiberglass boat... how does the song go? "We don't tip-toe through the tidepools"? Well... of course what the eye doesn't see...

(There are more Baja 2009 images on my web-site nigelkayaks.com)

Early break in Florida

2009-03-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

It's time to escape the northwest for a break in balmy Florida!

We take a trip on the Hillsborough River with Barb and Rick to look for wild birds and alligators. True to form we are soon gasping at the outrageous color of roseate spoonbills, at the tall striding sandhill cranes, wood storks and every variety of egret, and paddling under trees shaking with vultures.

The weather still cool, it's not the best for sunbathing alligators... but enough for the vultures...

Skilled sea kayaker Brad Tanner of Mote Marine gives us a great guided tour of the facilities at this non-profit independent marine research laboratory and rehabilitation center at Lido Key, Sarasota. With the longest-running research program into dolphins, Mote Marine scientists can identify every resident dolphin in the Tampa Bay and surrounding area, often from just a single photo, and have genealogical records running back more than 50 years.

Dolphins and sea turtles feature strongly here, but there are manatees at the rehab. center too. It's a great way to see what they look like underwater without getting your face wet!

And if you really don't like sticking your head in the water, you can see through the side of the 135,000 gallon shark tank too!

(If you like fishing, there's a life-sized model of the largest hammerhead shark caught locally with rod and line to show you what's possible...) (That's Brad standing beside the hammerhead shark)

With more than 200 varieties of Florida marine life on display in the aquarium, Mote Marine is the perfect place to start if you're visiting Florida. It shows what you might see, and I always see more when I know what to look for.

If you see specimens here that look less healthy, remember this is a working research and rehab. center. Many of the creatures you see were brought here injured or ill. After recovery they will be released again if possible.

With my brother David and lovely Kim, Barb, Rick, Claudia and Russell, we spend a day on the Weeki Wachi River.

Manatees float in the pools

Further upstream the water gets clearer and the colors more vivid.

Florida for me is about kayaking, canoeing and guitars. This year we are offered a guided tour of the Dean Guitar Workshops in Tampa, by John Puhl. It was really interesting to see how a growing company like this operates, and see the precision processes that are used to create these great-playing guitars.

No Florida trip would be complete without dropping in on Kent Sonnenberg at Legends Guitar inc. Kent always has some cool vintage guitars there. Guitars are always changing hands. It's fun to see what's in today... and his son Chad (a great guitarist!) is working on their web site, so soon you'll be able to see their new arrivals on line.

Inspired, we pull out a few guitars at home to play. Between kayaking trips, Russell has been spending more time playing with the Sizemore Band.

The band rehearsals are at his house, but we see them play in Dunedin...

Close to Dunedin and the brew-pub is honeymoon Island. Claudia takes us there to watch the pods of dolphins, and to picnic on the white sand beach.

Claudia and Kristin...

Before we leave for home we explore the Weedon's Island Preserve; there's a marked canoe trail there, and a kayak rental concession, and a boardwalk through the mangroves and an interpretive center. Something for everyone! We take off along the canoe trail; pristine white-sand beaches, mangrove tunnels and shallow lagoons with birds, cruising stingrays and leaping mullet...