Venice Italy and the Vogalonga

The Vogalonga in and around Venice is the most colorful and exhilarating event I have experienced in a long time! With more the 1,500 boats; gondolas, canoes, rowing sculls, rowing barges and kayaks, there must have been thousands of participants. Giorgio Sartori, Kristin Nelson and Jennifer Kleck, and I launched our Point65 kayaks and paddled past the tall stone buildings and the gondolas through the city to meet up with a few other paddlers near the “Bridge of Sighs”… paddlers from the Netherlands, Croatia, Australia, Serbia and Sicily, Venice, Denmark and Switzerland.


Of course we paused for espresso on the way... here is Giorgio ordering. We tethered the kayaks outside.

Starting near St Marks Square at the end of the Grand Canal, the race loops around the lagoon visiting towns on other islands, including Borano, a lace-making center where all the houses are painted in different colors, and Murano, known for its glassmaking.

We stopped for a snack and espresso at Burano before finishing the route as far as the western entrance to the Grand Canal where we found the way still blocked by boats at the bottleneck created by the first bridge. Paddles and oars tangled and clashed as the current pushed the boats back.

The final part of the route follows the Grand Canal back to St Marks Square, past magnificent frescoes and mosaics, wrought-iron and marble facades. To either side we caught glimpses of narrow canals with steep stone bridges between tall buildings, with dark gondolas creeping along.

I was delighted to see people of all ages in every kind of paddle-powered craft taking part, some in costume and flying huge flags, others simply using whatever craft they could get hold of to use. There was a great sense of community. We dodged around taking photos, and sprinted forward or drifted back to see a particular boat more closely.

We will be in Italy for another week, teaching classes at nearby Bibione at the Capalonga campground, where the First Italian Sea Kayaking symposium will be held this coming weekend, 16-18 May. Come and join us! And then next year? We’ll certainly be coming back! Check on my web-site www.nigelkayaks.com in a few weeks time for more details of this trip and also to find out what is planned for 2009!

From snow to sunny Mexico

It snowed in Seattle the day I flew to San Diego. April showers of snow for a few days while I endured the salty Californian air, played in the waves with VCP rep and fellow British transplant Sean Morley, and joined Jennifer Kleck for her sea kayak symposium in Mission Bay.

Then… the first Point65 Whisky16 sea kayak to see North America arrived by truck from Los Angeles, having been specially flown in from China. It’s my latest design. I was excited to see it but sad to find it had been squished beneath something heavy. Jake tenderly nursed it to health with his healing hands and a fiber-glass repair kit, so it was on the water by Saturday afternoon… Jake was the first person to paddle one in North America!

It’s always a pleasure to help symposium paddlers improve their skills, but it was equally fun to socialize on Saturday evening around a fire-pit on the beach swapping songs until rain stopped play… This year Jen did not flame her blonde bangs… and the keg remained secure on the beach until empty… (Listen to the lyrics of the symposium songs or ask her for those particular stories!)

Sunday evening Thom and Lynn invited all the coaches for a wonderful dinner at their home, followed by double-shots of espresso... and fine 16 year old Lagavulin single malt in celebration of the Whisky16!

And next day we all crossed the border to play around the rocks of the Mexican Pacific coast; it was a real delight for me to use my new W16 in fun conditions and to hang out with my buddies! Thank you Jen for putting it all together and saving me from the Seattle snow! For more symposium images check out Michael Franklin's site!

Florida, dear Florida!

Manatees, alligators, warm water and sun;

Yes, it's the time of year when places in the south appear more attractive than those further north! Late February is when Sweetwater Kayaks hold their annual sea kayaking symposium, and that gives me the excuse to visit Russell and Claudia, and Jean Totz and to meet up with friends from across the country and from across the ocean!

The BCU (British Canoe Union) is grappling changes imposed by UK government, and one interesting result is a shift in focus bringing an upsurge of interest in canoing.... that's "canoing" of the North American meaning, not the "canoeing a.k.a. kayaking" of UK usage. I'm pleased because I've always enjoyed canoes and finally had the opportunity to use them in Florida this winter! As Steve MacDonald and Phil "4th of May" Hadley from UK began stitching canoe skills into the US kayakers, it was fun to see all manner of American kayaking coaches on their knees for a change, freeing themselves of white "kayakers legs"!

Apart from single-bladed paddlers at the event, there were the usual narrow double-blade contingent (ably aided by world-class instructors Greg Stamer, back from circumnavigating Iceland last summer, and Cheri Peri and Turner Wilson). Plus there were the usual "we're here to have fun and get wet in warm water!" contingent, learning to stand up, or to roll, or to laugh outside the box (a place where I typically hang out), and a crowd of paddlers steering their way through the changing levels of BCU certification. I didn't see many long faces.

After the symposium I lingered longer to paddle with Swedish friends Roland and Britta (who coordinate my annual trips/courses in the Stockholm archipelago), Seattle photographer Joel Rogers, and of course Russell and Claudia. We skipped around the local rivers seeking manatees, alligators, turtles and roseate spoonbills, hiked a couple of places and watched Russell's band at a gig in Dunedin... Florida is always synonymous with music for me, jamming with Russell and other friends, checking out used guitars at "Legends" in Tampa or heading out to to a live concert. An amazing number of my kayaking friends are talented musicians!

So, now back in sunny Seattle, I'll be wondering where the warm went until the next trip south... to San Diego for the Aqua Adventures symposium and some fun in the rock gardens of nearby Baja Mexico! Will I see you there?

(Jennifer Kleck, owner of Aqua-Adventures recently became the first American to qualify as a BCU level 5 sea kayaking coach! Congratulations!)

Be safe on your surf-ski

Wednesday evening I gave a slide presentation at the WAKE kayak club (at Bellingham Wa) about kayaking in the Faroe Islands. (“They said the Faroes were in Egypt”.) I was sad to hear of a local paddler who died recently. He was a member of the paddling community if not of that club. WAKE is very safety aware and so everyone took note to see what could be learned.

I gathered he was paddling at dusk on a surf-ski, had tipped into the water and become separated from his ski by the wind. By chance another paddler on a surf-ski came by and tried to retrieve his ski for him. He too spilled, and had difficulty climbing back into his seat. By that time in the dark he could see neither the swimmer nor his craft. With his VHF radio he called the rescue services which found the stray kayak but at first could not see the swimmer. When he was eventually spotted and rescued, it was too late. Sadly he died.

Without going into his situation in detail, I thought I might pick up on a few factors that could be of help to others. I’ll focus on surf-skis although most of the points apply to any kayak. I’ll choose just six; there are many more; please feel free to post your own favorites here.

1. Surf-skis generally float well, don’t swamp, yet are lightweight and are easily blown. They blow away more rapidly than capsized sea kayaks, and often more quickly than you can swim. Race craft built for light weight, they often have little in the way of deck-lines or grab handles, and can be slippery when wet. Consider a tether of some sort so you can keep contact. Some surf-ski paddlers tether their paddle to the ski, so if they keep hold of the paddle they have a way to get to their ski. Wave ski paddlers, riding surf waves, make use of an ankle tether which attaches to the ski so it does not get carried to the beach in event of a spill, and this could work well on a surf-ski too.

2. Especially at this time of year when it gets dark early, an after-work spin could finish after dark. Wear reflective clothing to be visible especially if you should end up swimming. Your head and shoulders will show most. Reflective tape shows up really well if someone is shining a light to look for you. Carry a light and you can signal too. Waterproof headlamps and flashing lights of the kind used by cyclists are good inexpensive options. (for a better option see comment by Reni below)

3. If you’re swimming in windy choppy conditions, the chances are against anyone hearing your calls for help. Carry a marine VHF radio, and learn how to use Channel 16 in case of an emergency. With a radio you may be able see and direct searchers straight to your aid even before they can see you.

4. Wear an appropriate PFD (float-vest). Make sure it's the right size, fits correctly and make sure you’ve fastened it correctly.

5. Wear clothing suitable for where you are going and what you could end up doing. Shorts might seem fine for what you first intend to do, but if you could spill into cold water, or you could end your trip wet and in a chill wind, it’s best to dress for those eventualities. A dry-suit is great, but its insulating properties in water are only as good as what you wear inside it. Check for yourself how warm your clothing actually is from time to time by floating around in the water by the shore after paddling.

6. Finally; a few pointers about strategy. It’s easier to get to shore if you are close to it. It’s usually easiest to paddle straight into the wind. It's harder to control a kayak down-wind. It is much more difficult to turn around, and unstable when you are side-on to the wind and waves. In a tippy kayak your easiest and safest route might be from A to B along a shore directly into the wind. Think about it; you don’t want to fall into the water far from shore with an offshore wind while trying to turn around. You don’t want your first rough-water attempts at climbing back on in deep water to happen when you are by yourself in cold water at dusk. Practice your techniques in a safe place! It’s generally safer to paddle with a companion, and a good idea to tell someone responsible where you are going and when you expect to be back. Figure out your strategy to make it easy to stay alive!

Most safety advice is “common sense” when you think about it, but sometimes you don’t think about it till afterwards. The real skill is anticipating events that might happen and figuring out possible strategies to deal with each of them. Preparation includes gear, skills and awareness, and should also include a “get-out clause” so you can turn around and go home without getting wet whenever you don’t think you have all you need to be safe on a particular outing.

You can find a lot more safety tips in my book "Nigel Foster's Sea Kayaking", Globe Pequot Press.

On Balance... a good year

Balance

Most people kayak for fun, and realize it’s possible to improve quite rapidly. Although getting better at handling a kayak is easy to see, less noticeable perhaps is that kayaking improves the sense of balance, and quickens a person’s reactions. We probably take balance for granted, challenging it daily in ways we never realize, and then occasionally we’ll deliberately “stretch the envelope”. I know a paddler who bought a “tippy kayak” in order to become a better paddler and had problems even sitting in it. The kayak would stay upright by itself but not with him in it. He sometimes fell out, leaving the kayak empty and upright. He was frustrated because he knew other paddlers who could actually relax in it, so he loaded the kayak with weights to make it more stable. Each time he went afloat he reduced the weight a little until one day he found he didn’t need to carry anything; he could balance without help.

One of my own challenges was to stand up in my Vyneck sea kayak; something I saw somebody do on a Welsh lake years ago and vowed to copy. It took me a lot of swimming around, some strategy and some perseverance before I could wriggle from the small cockpit to sit on the rear deck, and then to stand on the seat. It took a lot more practice before I could stand up and then sit back down again without getting wet. My next challenge was doing the same on water that was not flat. Then Kristin stood up on the rear deck of my Legend… and the challenges progressively got more difficult!

So a sense of balance is something we can develop if we try, if we challenge ourselves. One of the improvements we make in time is to relax more, which helps us wobble less. As we learn to edge a kayak to turn, so our hips loosen up and we become more adept at keeping our shoulders above our hips. As our posture improves it helps keep our weight centralized. The improvements don’t just show on the water; as we react more quickly to a wobble on the water, so we react quickly to a spilled glass or a dropped pen.

Balance; In Search of the Lost sense, by Scott McCredie, Little, Brown and Company, 2007

So what is our “sense of balance”? We have sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch as long recognized and studied senses, so the long neglected and under-studied “balance” is truly the “sixth sense”. This year, a friend of mine, Scott McCredie was motivated to write the first book on balance for the general reader. He had seen his father, who had always had good balance, take a fall off a rock in the mountains. He had simply “lost his balance”.

Falling is how a great number of people begin
the slide from health to old age or from old age to death. There is a connection between ageing and reduced balance. Brittle bones don’t help, but balance is something we “use or lose”. In fact if you think about what helps us estimate the comparative ages of people we see, apparent agility and balance, posture and reaction time are big helpers. Someone who has quick reactions, good posture, is agile and has good balance is perceived as younger than someone who moves slowly and cautiously, with poor posture and tentative balance.

Even birds practice... like this one, balancing on one leg in New Zealand....

Might kayaking help us maintain our youthfulness into old age by maintaining our bone strength and challenging our balance in a safe way? Maybe. Smiling a lot might help too, but better; read Scott’s book about balance. He explains far more about the mechanism of balance than I would have thought to ask, including why I have a more difficult time standing and balancing while taking my socks off in the dark than in do in daylight. And also why, on special occasions like New Year’s Eve, my balance doesn’t always seem, well, let’s just say “as good as usual”.

Happy New Year, and may you succeed in balancing all the way into 2008 and far beyond!

(There is a little more about balance on my playak blog...)

Happy Holidays

Here's wishing you all Happy Holidays and a fun year ahead of sea kayaking, surfing, white-water, canoeing or whatever you most enjoy! If you're frozen in, now is the time of year to start checking out your gear to make sure it's all leak-free, that deck lines are replaced if necessary and that your hatches haven't finally expired. The days are now getting longer and the thaw will eventually arrive! Hang on in there! Read up on Freya Hoffmeister's blog... she's on her way around South Island New Zealand and has just passed Greymouth where Paul Caffyn lives (he's the guy who first circumnavigated New Zealand... and went on to circumnavigate just about everywhere including Australia.) Explore Playak.net and meet kayakers from other places on-line. Or, if you paddle in a warm place, then get out and enjoy! Speaking of which... the sun is shining in Seattle, there is snow on the mountains and the water calls...

Thirty years ago in Iceland

Thirty years ago, summer 1977, it felt strange to drive past the bright flags and flapping buntings strung out between the houses and across the streets of the little Sussex village of Burwash. It was as if the village was decorated to see us off; ready to watch the spectacle of Geoff Hunter’s Austin Mini Van with sea kayaks (two of the very first Vynecks) lashed to the roof-rack pass on its way to Iceland, but no, it was the summer of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee celebration. Unlike the Queen’s, our procession came to a grinding halt when our paddles flew from the roof; we forgot to tie them down.

Geoff in Vyneck, Iceland with Axel

That year there was a ferry service from Scrabster in Scotland to the Faroe Islands, and this, the first ferry of the season, was greeted by a bagpipe-playing band of kilted musicians striding the quay… another illusion of a personal send-off. We parked Geoff’s minivan in the harbor master’s shed for the summer and carried our weighty kayaks and boxes of gear on board Smiryl for a wild bouncing ride to Torshavn… and then, after four days to recover, for the remainder of the journey north to the snow-coated mountains of eastern Iceland to offload at Seydhisfjordur.

Geoff was a more seasoned paddler than I, having paddled around Britain a few years before in a plywood copy of a Greenland kayak he built himself.

"Angmagssalik Round Britain" about Geoff Hunter's 1970's trip

However he was patient with my pace, as we set off towards the sands of the south coast, about which we’d been warned by everyone who knew anything about Iceland. Dumping surf, quick-sands, sandstorms, no shelter and strong winds were a few warned-of dooms but there was always that back-up plan… we could quit if it proved too much for us. But I know Geoff… he’s not a quitter! We never considered it as more than a back-up plan, even when Geoff was being looped end over end in his Vyneck in the surf off a river mouth where a rapid current fought to help us out through the surf but in the end was not enough. The surf in the end prevented our escape. We finally admitted defeat and were returned to a pounding in the shore break with the day’s mileage total zero. When we changed into dry clothes we found beach sand and grit up to pea-sized nuggets had been forced as far into our clothing as our underpants. Of course, that was before the happy days of latex dry-seals around the wrists… or nowadays even cocoon-like breathable fabric dry-suits that can make kayaking a somewhat dry sport rather than a water sport. Typically our launching provided a sufficiently thorough drenching to set the level of wetness for the whole day, while throughout the night the wet gear dripped to mere dampness if it didn’t rain.

Nigel Foster (left) and Geoff Hunter, South coast Iceland 1977

 

But it was summer, and the weather was often pretty nice! Barring a few storms, and some chill snowy weather in August, we fared pretty well. Sometimes it might have been nice to have had a weather forecast. We could not receive the English-speaking BBC radio programs from home broadcast, and of course this was before portable VHF radios, and before cell-phones. Our best forecast was usually our own observation, but we also asked about the weather when we detoured to buy food supplies.

In 1977 Iceland had almost no kayakers. In the ten weeks we spent in Iceland that summer we met just one kayaker, a man who lived in the northwest fjords. He had been inspired to build his own skin-on-frame kayak after visiting Greenland. But there was no shortage of interesting people! One remote lighthouse holds the biggest private collection of books in Iceland. A handful of fishermen-farmers living in a remote place bury shark meat in the beach for months on end to ferment before hanging it in chunks in drying sheds for more months to reduce the odor… before… well in our case, before offering it to us to taste. Out in the fjords fishing boats approached us to offer us scalding cups of coffee, passed over the side as the vessels rolled low on the swell.

The puffin cliffs near Vik, Iceland

As with all good travel, we had a single well-defined goal to hold the experience together; in this case it was to try to paddle all the way around Iceland. We also had the time to spend doing it. In the south we were invited to stay with a farming family through 6 days of a particularly harsh storm. At Haemay we hiked up the volcano Helgafell, and camped on the beach, still hot since the 1973 eruption. In the northwest we helped with haymaking. We had enough time to get a good feel for Iceland and its people, and by the end it was with sadness that we realized the trip was over. As Geoff said, we should have made it last a bit longer, but perhaps that too is how it should be. It’s a sign of a bad trip if you’re glad when it’s over!

(Left) Raging Rivers Stormy Seas devoted one chapter to a part of the 1977 Iceland circumnavigation

So that was 1977… would I go back to Iceland? Absolutely! It's a brilliant place with great people! I already have returned more than a couple of times; to hike in the interior, to kayak more closely sections of coast we passed quickly, and to driving around the island.

In 2008 I'm going again for the “Eric the Red” sea kayaking symposium. Iceland has a great coastline, and nowadays has a thriving sea kayaking community. See you there? Click here for more about the 1977 Iceland circumnavigation.