Recent content by Chip

Snapper's mention of hiking reminded me of a mesmerizing scene on Mt. Osceola, NH, a 4300' peak in the Whites. It was 2013 and we'd hiked up to spend the night. I packed Maryland micro-brew to share and we set ourselves up on the rocky outcroppings at the peak to watch the daylight fade. It had...

Watching an enormous bird flock had me mesmerized in 2017. I couldn’t turn away. Lake paddling in the Adirondaks in the fall did it, too. It was a perfectly still day and there were no other boats on the lake, so there was a perfect, mirror reflection of the colorful trees lining the lake...

Patience. It’s hard, but if you rush things, you risk re-injury, and that would be a setback which keeps you off the water even longer. Start slow and easy and gradually build from there. I know it’s hard because you may feel you can go more, but you gotta gradually recover to reach your new...

I was about to leave a rest stop in Southern Maryland when an elderly couple pulled in next to me. The old woman on the passenger side must have been 80+ and slowly began to get out, and I could tell it was taking a bit to get her old bones moving. As she got out, her eyes wandered from me to...

Rather than break up the bulkhead, I suggest you consider adding a concrete skid plate on the bow. Concrete is a versatile material. There’s an annual concrete canoe race held among college engineering teams. Your concrete skid plates will add ballast and hull protection at the same time, while...

If you get a hand pump, also get some tubing to extend the nozzle a foot or so. Otherwise, it’s difficult to direct the outflow of the pump over the gunwales. I really liked having a bilge pump in my sea kayak. The hand pump takes a lot of work to empty the cockpit. My Sostice has a tight...

I mounted a pair of pumps in my Encore, right behind the pedestal. They weren’t permanently mounted, but I never removed them. The pumps were connected to tubes that were connected to the thru-hull discharge fittings on either side of the hull, so the setup was semi-permanent. And besides, I...

My Kevlar Rendezvous makes horrible noises when grinding over rocks. There have been times when I was out paddling and there really wasn’t enough water in the river, and I spent a lot of time wincing as the boat skidded over rock and gravel beds. I remember thinking I was ruining the boat. But...

If you keep ending up on the white water runs, I gotta question how hard you are looking for flat water. There is more flat water on the Potomac than ww. Start at Riley's lock and paddling upstream, there's at least 10 miles of flat water. Put in at Fletchers, its hundreds of miles of flat water...

If I’m paddling a rapid with a newb, they’re in the stern and I’m in the bow. In the bow, I can pick the slot and get the bow there. All the stern has to do is follow. If the bow doesn’t get where you need to be, the stern won’t get there either. communication: first, there’s lots of noise in...

My buddy wanted to canoe camp Maine’s St. John river, which includes rapids, so we thought I should learn whitewater. In ‘99 I took beginning whitewater (tandem) with the Canoe Cruisers, and began paddling every weekend with a group of open boaters, informally led by guidebook author Roger...

Bears, sharks, snakes, hippopotamus. All are animals you could possibly encounter while canoeing or camping. If you do encounter them, there's a small chance the animal will attack you. If attacked, you could be injured or killed. Ticks on the other hand, if you are in their range, you WILL...

I have not done a lot of trips with portages, and don't remember seeing any weird sites on portages. The only odd thing I saw was a footbridge and that was only odd because it was my second time across, and I knew there was no footbridge on the portage trail. With my canoe on my shoulders I was...

Pete's post, with which I completely agree, sent me to the dictionary. Trabeculae is an anatomical term, but works well to describe what he's talking about: a structural part resembling a small beam or crossbar, for the less anatomically informed, such as me. I don't think I have previously...

Pasta. We were on a barrier island trip and fresh water was precious. Cooking pasta usually involves throwing out the cook water. Wasteful, right? So, I just used bay water. I mean, I always salt the water before the pasta goes in, so bay water is just pre-salted water. The pasta came out way...