Sea Kayaker Editorial to the Rescue

We were plowing through another day at the office here at SK when editor Chris Cunningham lifted his binoculars from his desk and peered intently out the window into Puget Sound.

“Looks like that speedboat out there’s in a bit of distress,” Chris said.

The morning prior, this rainbow touched the water in roughly the same place we found the distressed boaters.

It was a 19’ speedboat drifting about a few hundred yards from the shoreline in front of the office. Through his binoculars, Chris observed one man in the bow ineffectually attempting to paddle away from the shallows. His boat mate  periodically waved an orange flag over his head.

We watched the men struggle as a variety of boaters whizzed by them, each either too far away or too preoccupied to notice. After about five minutes, Chris reported the situation to the US Coast Guard. They’d put out a call to see if any boaters in the area could help.

We watched for another five minutes while the men on the disabled speedboat continued paddling and signaling in vain. It seemed we’d been the only other people to take interest.

Finally, Chris couldn’t deny the opportunity for some excitement on the water any longer. He grabbed a VHF radio, turned to me and said, “Well Mike, look’s like we better go help them.”

In common theory it may not seem logical, or fun, to tow a speedboat by kayak. But, as a fiend for paddle sports and the new associate editor here at SK, I’d been eagerly waiting for a chance to get out in a boat. “Let’s go!” I didn’t hesitate.

Chris and I quickly drove to the SK warehouse where we geared up and carried a tandem kayak down to the beach. Chris grabbed a towrope and tossed it into the cockpit. Not five minutes after we’d abandoned our desk chairs we were paddling across in the gentle morning waters of Puget Sound. “This is our office,” I thought.

Chris and I launch into Puget Sound in front of the SK warehouse

After a short paddle, we pulled up along the bow of the malfunctioning vessel. The two young boaters explained they’d made it less than a mile from the launch ramp when their engine shut down. We hooked up the towrope and began paddling toward the shoreline, with the speedboat cruising steadily behind us.

Our ad exec, Paul Riek, snapped a few shots from Ray’s the dock at boathouse using his phone’s camera aimed through a pair of binoculars.

Surprisingly enough, we made good headway. Chris guessed we were doing about two and a half knots. Not too shabby for having close to a ton in tow behind us. The sun cast down without a cloud in the sky and a gentle breeze wafted about the pleasant scent of brine and sea life. A harbor seal poked its head from the water in front of our kayak, sat and watched us for a moment then speedily evaded in search of more interesting things.

The tow

We’d gone a few hundred yards when an auxiliary Coast Guard patrol boat, which had received the call from the Coast Guard base, met us and offered to take over the tow. We all agreed the Coast Guard’s assistance might be more efficient, though Chris and I would have been happy to extend our paddling session for as long as possible. We unhooked our towrope and passed the boaters to the Coast Guard.

Auxiliary Coast Guard patrol shows up

Chris and I stowed the gear and kayak and headed back to our desks, a morning well spent. Just another day at the Sea Kayaker office.

SK Team Paddler Helen Wilson update

Will you be at the 7th UK Storm Gathering?

Video Submission by Zegul

Check out this video submitted by  one of our advertisers, Zegul Kayaks.

BTW, they are also a sponsor in our photo contest boat Giveaway promotion, Click here to make your photo submission.

SK Team Paddler Update Christine Burris

3: On a day with temperatures above 65 degrees F. place your boat on a table or saw horses upside down outside. (I do not recommend working with gel coat indoors but, If due to cold or space you must then you must wear a respirator and provide good ventilation.) ..Unlike Bob : /

4: Using the three inch blue tape place a straight stripe down the center line of the hull. I attach at one end and then once reaching the flatter portion of the hull, unroll the tape, stretch to the stern pull tight and then adhere. This will designate the final outline of your keel strip so be accurate.

5: Using the two inch tape place a line on either side -almost but not quite touching the center blue line. (it helps to use one continuous strip so removal is fast and easy.)

  6: Remove the Center Tape.

7: Tape the ends to a point.

Be careful to not allow the used tape to touch the sides of the boat. If needed, replace dirty gloves with clean gloves before removing the second side of tape.

Ladies of the Lake. Frida Waara

Ladies of the Lake

Mom used to say, “When children are fussy, put them in water.” Must be why when my stress meter redlines I still find a life ring at the lakeshore. No better way to slip the choke chain than spending time at the waterline. Luckily, I can lure girlfriends to go too, especially with Ladies of the Lake Sea Kayak Symposium (LOL) in our Great Lakes backyard.

Since August 2004, Bill Thompson and Down Wind Sports of Marquette and Houghton, have been hosting a women’s only four-day paddling retreat in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Now, after a decade, Thompson and lead sponsor Danny Mongno from Werner Paddles, are rounding up all ten former guest coaches—world class paddlers–to celebrate LOL’s history, August 15-18, at Lake Huron’s Drummond Island.

“This reunion includes some of kayaking’s best,” says Thompson. “Without question, it’ll be the largest gathering of female BCU 4 and 5 star instructors in the U.S.”

Shawna Franklin from Body Boat Blade on Orcas Island—LOL’s inaugural guest instructor and speaker–heads the list.  She’s joined by Ginni Callahan, Gail Green, Marsha Hansen, Suzzanne Hutchinson, Jen Kleck, Adriane Lefkneckt, Cherri Perry, Mel Rice, and Cindy Scherrer.  A team of Midwest coaches will also return to complete the teaching staff.

It may seem odd that a man launched the country’s first and only all women’s sea kayak symposium, but Thompson believes, “If you want to grow a sport, you’ve got to get women involved.” And he adds with his quick smile, “And have a party at the end.”

From the start, Thompson’s instinct told him he needed women teaching women. But he didn’t recruit instructors just on gender, they also had to know how to relate to the fears and barriers that often hold women back.

“For some beginners,” says Thompson, “that means simply relaxing in a boat and feeling at ease on the water.”

As an emergency room physician, Robin Cook, has a natural  “relieving pressure” personality. She lives in Marquette and has been kayaking since the early 1990s, earning both ACA and BCU rankings.            “I love to teach, because I love to learn,” admits Cook, and that’s why she loyally donates her time and talent to LOL.

Cook spends much of the weekend with advanced paddlers teaching Greenlandic skills, but off the water she’s also taught kayaking safety, injury prevention, and wilderness first aid.

Thompson jam-packs the schedule from pre-dawn to post-dusk, so not all classes take place in the cockpit. New this year Lenore Sobota will be presenting, “Overcoming Fear, A Work in Progress.” Sobota knows this topic well because even though she’s an accomplished paddler, she doesn’t swim.

“Sometime our biggest challenges in paddling are mental more than physical.” She adds, “We might not be able to eliminate our fears, but we can learn to keep them from paralyzing us.”

And that’s the magic that has made LOL successful, women with experience teaching women who want to learn.

“They’ll come from hundreds even a thousand miles for the chance to build those relationships,” says Thompson.

“And paddle the clear blue waters of the Upper Great Lakes,” says Pat Henry. She faithfully packs her van full of friends from Pennsylvania and hauls a trailer-load of boats to every LOL.

Morgan Hatch was just a young teen when she attended the first LOL with her mother Shawn.

”Kayaking together keeps us close and we went to the first LOL because we wanted to refine our skills so we could plan expeditions to Pictured Rocks and Grand Island.” The next year Morgan learned to roll and it wasn’t long after that she was asked join the team of Midwest instructors.

Rolling wasn’t on Linda Welch’s list of goals at her first LOL.

“I wasn’t even at a point where my skills needed to be honed. I just needed skills to start with,” she says with honesty.  But over the years at LOL she’s been inspired to keep pushing for her personal best and now this retired elementary school principal is stepping it up so she can circumnavigate Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior.

Marsha Henson thinks, “The openness of a women’s only event creates a different sense of community and sharing. It’s an easy environment for progress. The lack of competition creates the spontaneous air of ‘anything is possible.’”

Mongno agrees. At the launch of LOL in 2003, he was the first to answer Thompson’s request and brought Werner Paddles on board as a sponsor.  Working for Werner as Regional Sales Manager and Field Marketing Coordinator, Mongno hits every symposium in the country, zipping from coast to coast, and he says without hesitation, “Ladies of the Lake has the best energy of any symposium I go to.” He adds with a grin, “And I’m not saying that just trying to get a date. I mean it.”

Henson has not only introduced her LOL students to new skills, but she’s also enticed them to new places to paddle. “Many ended up coming to Tybee Island to visit me,” says this Guest Coach from Sea Kayak Georgia.

Unlike most other Great Lakes kayak events, LOL travels to different waterfront towns. Thompson wants it that way and contends, “Part of the fun of kayaking is exploring new shorelines.”

For this tenth anniversary, the gathering takes place in the August warm and sheltered waters of Lake Huron’s Drummond Island where paddlers can explore 140 miles of shoreline. And to keep the laughter fueling the learning, Thompson and Mongno say they’re expecting a pirate takeover at this year’s Saturday night theme party.

For more Ladies of the Lake information contact www.ladiesofthelakeseakayaksymposium.com or call Down Wind Sports @ 906-482-2500.