Can you canoe, part two

There's nothing like getting together with a group of talented coaches and working on skills none of you yet possesses. Last Friday, Scott Fairty took Paul Redzimski, Wendy Madgwick, Bonnie Perry, Lyn Stone, John Martin and the two of us out on the water for a Canoe Two Star assessment and an update of our old BCU Canoe Safety to the new Foundations of Safety and Rescue. That sounds heady and intimidating, and it might have been if not for Scott's laid-back style and the enthusiasm of the group.
It certainly helped that all of us are experienced paddlers with a general level of comfort on the water in any type of boat. So what if we didn't yet know our J stroke from our C stroke? We picked them up fairly quickly.
Everybody's learning style was readily apparent. The verbal processors talked through everything prior to trying anything; the kinesthetic learners dove right in--sometimes quite literally. And Scott was the ringmaster, calling out the acts and letting us go at it.

Cross-bow stroke.

Emptying out a canoe.

Or main motivation for the assessment and update was our upcoming BCU Coach One assessment, for which these are prerequisites. What surprised us, however, was how much fun we had learning and demonstrating our new-found skills.
Then again, it's nearly always good to be on (or in) the water.
Click here for the full slide show.

Signs of Spring: Part 1

Everything's coming up kayaks.

After a winter of paddling mostly indoors, it's exciting to get out on the lake and rivers again. We've paddled on Lake Michigan several times already this year. The water is still cold (about 44 degrees), but if you dress appropriately, it's not unsafe. In fact, it's warm enough now that even Sharon is willing to roll and practice rescues. (She draws the line at about 42 degrees.) That's a sure sign of spring. And there are plenty of benefits to paddling on cold water: there's almost no boat traffic on the lake, the water in the harbors is still pretty clean, and the rivers tend to have nice currents and features.

Jeremy surfing a small wave on the "Mighty" DuPage.

This variety of padding is great for skill development. Here in the midwest, where we have no tides, river paddling allows us to experience currents and even small versions of tidal races. We can't eddy out from behind headlands on Lake Michigan, but we can practice that maneuver on rivers. The only ferrying we can do on Lake Michigan is in response to the wind, but we can practice ferrying to compensate for current on the rivers.
We thought about this last benefit on Friday, when we paddled into gusts of 25 to 30 miles per hour on the lake. The wind was out of the south and we were attempting to paddle southwest. If we headed slightly east, we ferried east; if we headed slightly west, we ferried west. The feeling was familiar because we had spent time ferrying on river currents.
There are many reasons to train in multiple paddlesports. That's why the British Canoe Union (BCU) requires coaches to be proficient in more than one discipline. Individual skills may not translate exactly from one paddlesport to another, but the combined knowledge base definitely augments your overall skill, comfort and enjoyment of paddling.

It's good to be back on open water.

Tristate paddle

Most of the time, we hear about exciting paddling opportunities after they're publicized. We aren't involved in the nitty gritty of organizing them; we're content to participate.
Not so the upcoming Burnham to Marquette Sea Kayak Expedition. We've been privileged to help plan this event, sponsored by the Northwest Indiana Paddling Association and spearheaded by its president, Dan Plath.
There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle, and Dan has managed to bring together a huge consortium of organizations in support of it. He's also reached out to paddlers in Indiana and Illinois to map out the route and strategize about how to enable a group to safely paddle it.
One of the challenges is finding appropriate put-ins and take-outs along a 50-mile stretch of Lake Michigan's shoreline. Yesterday, Dan and his fellow Hoosier, Steve Barker, met us, Lyn Stone (of CASKA) , Gary Mechanic (also of CASKA and the Illinois Paddling Council) and Keith Wikle of the West Michigan Coastal Kayakers Association, to explore possible put-ins.

Gary Mechanic, Dan Plath, Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin and Steve Barker, pondering the long carry at 31st Street.

We began at 31st Street, a beautiful beach with two major drawbacks: a long carry and limestone blocks offshore to break incoming waves. It isn't the ideal spot for a large group of paddlers to launch, particularly if some of them aren't experienced.
Next we moved to Burnham Harbor. The marina on the west side of the harbor has launch ramps that would be perfect for our purposes, provided we can obtain access to them and the nearby parking. Of the two sites, this was our preference.

Alec Bloyd-Peshkin points out the easy access at the Burnham Harbor Marina.

All this scouting worked up our appetite for paddling, so we unloaded our boats and got on the water.

Dan Plath and Steve Barker carry a boat down to the water.

It was a beautiful day. Keith dove right in.

Never mind the 40-degree water. Keith Wikle jumped in and scrambled into his boat. Lyn documented the event.

We paddled out the harbor and into what had been predicted to be 2- to 4-foot waves but turned out to be 1- to 2-footers at most. Still, we were aware of the added risk of the cold water and kept a watchful eye on each other.
Stay tuned for updates on this event. The weather and the water will be warmer. Not only will this be an opportunity to enjoy a long paddle in good company; it should also be a chance to learn about and advocate for a blueway and greenway from the tip of Chicago to the east side of Indiana. And who knows--perhaps it will be the start of a water trail clear around Lake Michigan.

Close encounters of the encouraging kind

When you kayak on Lake Michigan, the rules of the road don't count for much. The law of tonnage trumps all. Big boats have the right of way, and little boats stay out of the way.
And yet, we have our friends. The other day, we were paddling near Burnham Harbor, scouting launch sites for the upcoming Burnham to Marquette Sea Kayak Expedition and enjoying pretty much having the lake to ourselves, when we noticed a large white powerboat slowly heading right for us. Soon we realized it was a Chicago Police Department boat, and its captain wanted to talk to us. So we paddled toward it.
If you haven't yet had the pleasure of talking with any of the police officers in the CPD Marine and Helicopter Unit, you might not know that these guys are among the friendliest, most helpful cops in the city. They tend to be long-time mariners with a healthy love and respect for Lake Michigan and a serious dedication to keeping people safe on the water.
The captain, Roger, immediately recognized that we were capable of taking care of ourselves, so we chatted awhile. "I have to confess, 10 years ago I thought you kayakers were crazy going out here in those little boats," he said. "But now I'm thinking about buying one and joining you." So we gave him some local paddling resources, told him we'd be happy to kayak with him, and went our separate ways.
We've had several similarly positive enounters over the years with the police and Coast Guard. These guys see plenty of drunk powerboaters and oblivious jet skiers. We think they're relieved when they see knowledgable sailors and kayakers who clearly know what they're doing and how to keep from getting in trouble. That's a reputation we want to make sure that our paddling community upholds.
Consider, for a moment, the trouble that one novice kayaker caused the entire community when he went over a dam on the Fox River. That incident led to pending legislation to create 350-foot "exclusion zones" upstream and downstream of dams, eliminating portages and effectively making those rivers unpaddlable. (For more information, visit the Illinois Paddling Council.)
We have access issues on the lake, too. There is a limited number of put-in and take-out sites on the Chicago shoreline between Memorial Day and Labor Day. There can be heavy boat traffic on the lake and on the Chicago River on warm summer days. Because we are small and human-powered, we rely on good relationships with the authorities when we want to go through the lock between the lake and the river or organize an event like the upcoming Burnham to Marquette expedition.
We need to cultivate and maintain these relationships by being responsible and responsive. That's why we value encounters like the one with Roger and look forward to seeing him in a much smaller boat some day.

Now we understand

It must be for paddling.

Indulging our inner salmon

Here's something we have in common with salmon: We've been in all kinds of wonderful water, but every year we return to the tiny little pool where our love for paddling hatched.
OK, we stretched that metaphor to death. But how else can you explain our affection for the dinky little pool where the Chicago Whitewater Association (CWA) teaches 10-week classes every winter and spring?
We began as students about seven years ago. That's where we learned to roll and to control our boats. We gradually became assistants, helping set up gates and move gear. Now we're able to teach rolling and strokes to a new cohort of kayak enthusiasts and help on the club's teaching trips every spring on the DuPage, Vermillion and Wolf Rivers.
Last night was the final spring pool class in Oak Park--the night of the slalom, in which students are challenged to run through a series of gates, sometimes forward and sometimes backwards, as a test of their new-found paddling skills.

John Karch explains the slalom rules: Run all the gates once--some forwards, some backwards-- and do a roll or a 360-degree spin at the end before repeating the course once more. Each time you hit a gate, five seconds are added to your time.

People get very nervous, but they're also very supportive of one another. There's a lot of cheering when someone clears a gate, and groaning when they tap one with their boat or paddle.

Bret manages to clear a gate, using his kayak limbo skills.

After the instructors run the course, we take down the gates, haul out the boats and go out for pizza. We'll see one another again in a few weeks, when we embark on the first of the river trips.

Mike gives the slalom race two thumbs up. Next stop: actual moving water!

First signs of spring

A cluster of canoe paddles beckons wandering canoeists and wayward kayakers.

Forget groundhogs and crocuses. The first sign of spring for midwestern paddlers is Canoecopia, the annual paddlesports expo sponsored by Madison-based Rutabaga.
Canoecopia is more than a trade show. Sure, it features the expected vendor booths where visitors can try out and try on the latest and greatest gear, from boats and paddles to PFDs, watches, dry bags, wet suits, shoes, camping gear, cooking gear, safety gear and more. They can also browse a comprehensive selection of books and DVDs, and get information from outfitters and resorts, clubs and organizations, camps and magazines. In other words, anyone looking for anything related to paddlesports would find it here.

Dr. Danny Mongno, paddle authority extraordinaire, at the Werner Paddle booth.

But there's more to Canoecopia than that. Every hour, there are at least six simultaneous sessions where visitors can learn about paddling expeditions and destinations, get tips about nature photography and backwoods camping, and hear some of the top instructors explain their techniques.

Ben Lowry demonstrates rolling on dry land prior to a session in the pool.

But honestly, there's more to it than that, too. For us, Canoecopia is also a chance to connect. We spend part of our time in the hallway, where numerous clubs have tables, talking to passers-by about what our clubs are offering. This year, we were ostensibly representing CASKA (the Chicago Area Sea Kayakers Association) but also promoting the new NWIPA (Northwest Indiana Paddling Association), and encouraging attendance at the upcoming Paddlesports Festival in Aurora, the Chicago Shoreline Marathon, the new Burnham to Marquette Sea Kayak Expedition, and more.

At the CASKA booth, Sharon extolls the opportunities to paddle in the Chicago area.

Tom Lindblade, president of the Illinois Paddling Council, encourages people to lobby against proposed legislation that would restrict access to Illinois waterways.

In addition to reconnecting with old friends -- Danny Mongno of Werner Paddles, Kelly Blades of P&H Kayaks, Derrick Mayoleth of Kayak Quixotica, Damon and Sarah Smith of Riverside Kayak Connection and more -- we're always excited to meet new ones. This year, we had the privilege of seeing the premiere of Bryan Smith's new film, Eastern Horizons, and meeting him and his wife, Lise-Anne (who are four months away from bringing a new paddler into the world).

A dry moment caught on camera.

Ultimately, for us paddling is much more than a water-based sport. It's a community, and we thank Rutabaga for helping us reconnect every spring.

You can teach an old kayaker new tricks

Sharon completes a low brace recovery.

This is week three of the solo canoe class. It's strange and wonderful to be a student again. We experience every lesson on two levels: as students learning new skills, and as instructors fascinated by how other instructors teach.
Our paddling skills do and don't translate. Many of the strokes are familiar but different. Our draw strokes are almost identical, but the canoe pry has no counterpart in the kayak repertoire. The low brace is pretty similar, but the canoe high brace is an act of faith compared to the high brace recovery stroke we do in a kayak (the end of a roll).
Open boats sink much more quickly than kayaks containing flotation or bulkheads. And yet the strategies for assisted rescues are quite similar. The canoe folks just discovered the fabulous heel-hook reentry that sea kayakers began using a couple of years ago.
Stick around in any paddle sport and you'll witness techniques evolve. As we learned the high brace, IT (Instructor Trainer) Tom Lindblade noted that the ACA (American Canoe Association) has recently begun recommending a pry stroke instead.
We're enjoying watching another discipline's instructors adopt and teach techniques that change over time.

Alec attempts to roll a canoe.

Can you canoe?

We've enrolled in a Solo Canoe class. Stay tuned for photos and reflections as we seek to answer that question in the affirmative.

Getting ready for the Inland Sea Kayak Symposium

The Inland Sea Kayak Symposium resumes this year. It's a wildly popular symposium, and the campsite in Washburn fills up quickly. So we arrived early to get a good site.

There was little competition for sites. We got this prime location on our first drive through the campground loop.

Then we discovered we didn't have our tent. So we drove down to the boat launch to paddle.

We leashed and curbed our boat and didn't park. No need to stir up trouble!

That's when we discovered that we also forgot our boats. But the lake beckoned. It was covered in 30 inches of ice, but underneath that, we knew the water was delightful. So we practiced some solid-water rolling.

What's better than dry-land rolling? Solid-water rolling.

Nobody else showed up, and eventually we decided that we had shown up a little bit too early. We'll be back June 18 - 21. See you then!

Reflections

One thing we appreciate about the way Ronnie and Marsha teach is that they have definite views about how maneuvers and procedures, from strokes to rescues, should be performed and can explain the logic behind their convictions. And yet, if you do something differently and can explain why, they’re open to your ways.
Another thing we came to appreciate was the way Ronnie and Marsha work as a team. We could see their styles rubbing off on each other: Ronnie’s earnestness and Marsha’s playfulness; Ronnie’s attention on the training task at hand and Marsha’s insistence on noticing the dolphins and the clouds; Ronnie’s focus on the skills and Marsha’s attention to the emotions.
And yet, Ronnie can be funny, charmed by his surroundings and sensitive, and Marsha can be serious, fastidious about the fine points of a rescue, and precise in her critiques. And for both, safety and what they term “the duty of care” to students are always front and center.
This morning, we debriefed over breakfast. They critiqued each of us individually, and we had a discussion about the previous four days of training: highs, lows, what we learned, how we felt about our skills as paddlers and instructors. Their observations were stunningly accurate and inspiring, and they reinforced something we’ve come to believe about paddling in general: There is no one scale of skill on which we all fall relative to one another. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, our better and worse fits, our moments of brilliance, our blind spots and our areas in which we still need to improve.
We've been inspired by many paddlers over the years and have had an opportunity to train with a handful for a day here or there. This was our first opportunity to spend extended time with two coaches we highly respect, and we came away richer for the experience.

The rewards of returning home: Hannah and Jeremy

Day four, with towing and surf

Having stayed up late doing night navigation exercises, we inexplicable started early today. The agenda: towing in various conditions.
One of the things we love about teaching is watching the 60-watt light bulbs come on our students. For us, today was full of smaller holiday-light moments. We began with a few contact tow and short-tow exercises designed to reinforce ways to keep the victim’s boat close and secure without compromising the rescuer’s ability to paddle and remain safe. We also worked with our tow belts, in flat conditions and in surf. Lessons learned were mainly tweaks and improvements to what we already knew, but their total wattage added up quickly. They include:
- ensure that the quick-release knot in your short tow doesn’t get bound up with salt and sand (retie your contact-tow set up each time you paddle)
- use a carabiner in your tow bag to divide the full length of the long tow rope in half, then let it slip down to the victim’s boat to extend to full length (we previously used a daisy chain for the half length, and again, the salt and sand could keep it from easily releasing)
- if the person you’re helping through the surf is capable of assisting, you can direct them to back paddle when the waves begin pushing
- when you’re in the surf zone, rescues take on heightened urgency, but taking a moment to help the victim secure his or her spray skirt will aid stability even in a unemptied boat.
- don’t keep your carabiner in your mouth as you approach to start a tow unless you relish a trip to the dentist
- despite the urgency, pick your way in and time your approach so it’s as easy and controlled as possible
As the tide moved in and the waves built a bit, we had opportunities to practice surfing again, as well as read the changing waves and pick our way through rougher areas. But time was quickly running out. We were torn between our desire to stay out and play, and our need to get back and pack our gear. There’s never enough time on the water.

Day three: navigation day and night

Today is all about finding our way and staying out of traffic. The kind of stuff you hope your kids learn by the time they head off for kindergarten, but it’s trickier when you’re in a small boat on big water.
The day began with navigation exercises on land and on the water. We practiced finding bearings and triangulating to determine our position, and then finding a heading to a buoy that took into account the current and wind. We paddled out to the buoy and, once again, were joined by several playful dolphins.

Lyn photographs a dolphin, one of many we would see during the day.

The next step was safely crossing Tybee Road, a major shipping channel where the Savanna River meets the Atlantic Ocean. So we grouped up at a green bell buoy and watched for boats. When the coast seemed clear, we took the shortest route across, to the red buoy. From there we practiced taking bearings and adjusting headings until it was time to cross the channel again. This time, we heard the rumble of something large in the distance. It turned out to be a gambling boat—a windowless, tank-like vehicle that seemed like a symbol of floating desperation. Playing it safe, we waited about 10 minutes until it was at most two minutes from crossing in front of us, then took off across the channel. Our trip took about nine minutes. We might have made it if we hadn’t waited, but who wants to take the chance of being run over by a gambling boat?

Green buoy 17. When we visited it during the day, it was a helpful aid to navigation, marking our position and one side of the shipping channel. When we came back that night, it was a safe haven--a spot where we felt less vulnerable in the darkness and the Saturday night boat traffic.

When we returned to the same beach after dark, everything looked different. Lights blinked on the water, calling out their identities with their color and frequency. Estimating distances was tough. At one point, the residential lights more than five miles away on Hilton Head Island looked like bioluminescence about half a mile away. We used a red light to read our chart and compasses because red light doesn't compromise night vision, only to discover that the color made it difficult to tell one side of the bearing compass needle from the other or immediately see the color of buoys on the chart. Everything took longer and felt more uncertain in the dark.

Checking the chart and choosing a heading was harder on land in the dark, and even more so on the water.

When we got on the water, strong swells and a pushy current immediately rendered our intended heading obsolete. We paddled out to the buoy while watching a large freighter cruise up Tybee Road. The dolphins must have been asleep beneath us, one eye open, one eye closed. It was beautiful and magical being out at night. By the time we arrived at the buoy, we felt the full two knots of current pushing us out toward the ocean. That's when a motor boat sped by a little too close for comfort, reminding us how vulnerable we were.
Lessons learned include:
- practice with all your night gear before you really need to use it
- plan ahead on shore as much as possible (which is true night or day)
- don't let advance planning keep you from adjusting when you get on the water and feel the real conditions (or as Marsha says, "Get your brain off the paper.")
- pack before it gets dark, if possible
- secure anything you can't afford to lose (we used paddle leashes)
- realize that you may be far less visible on the water than you think.

Day two, complete with dolphins

If you’ve ever checked the online weather forecast and then set out without an umbrella only to immediately get drenched, you would appreciate our first navigation lesson of the day: look around. We checked the Tide Log, so we knew that the high tide had been at 4:43 a.m. and the low would be at 11:25. We knew that the ebb tide would peak at 2.1 knots, so using the 50/90 rule, we figured that the current at 9:30 a.m. was about 90 percent of that. So when Ronnie told us to choose a bearing across Tybee Creek in order to reach a specific heading, we chose bearings well upriver.
It’s a testimony to our honesty that we continued on despite immediate feedback from the water that it wasn’t flowing at anything like the 1.9 knots we had estimated. It certainly didn’t look like it was, either, but we had chosen to let what we thought we knew overrule what our senses told us. Lesson learned.
Ronnie and Marsha excel at demystifying things. Next, they had us paddle backward in current and wind. We dutifully did, correcting as we went with long sweep strokes on one side. Ronnie stopped us to point out something obvious we hadn’t considered: the first half of a reverse sweep stroke propels more than it turns; the second half turns more than it propels. So in windy conditions, the best way to correct is to only use the second half of the reverse sweep stroke on the side to which you’re turning. We knew that, but we had never applied it.
The rest of the day was full of other demystifying moments like these., including a lunchtime navigation exercise about simple ways to locate yourself on a chart and navigate while on the water.


We also surfed a bit and marveled at how different ocean waves are from Lake Michigan waves. We got long rides on waves that had longer period and came in actual sets. And at one point, while paddling in the offshore swells, we were joined by four dolphins, who slowed down and stayed with us for several minutes. We also paddled through the marsh at high tide, where we saw oyster catchers and other shore birds. The sun was setting across Tybee Creek as we loaded our boats. It was day that satisfied all three of our goals.

Day one, shivers and all

It’s a humbling experience for cold-weather denizens like us to come to a warm-weather locale like this and admit that we’re freezing. But we overcame our pride and acknowledged that today. The water was in the low 50s, the air didn’t break 40 and the wind never stopped.
We asked Ronnie and Marsha to coach us on several levels simultaneously: as paddlers, as instructors and as out-of-town visitors. Today was a mix of all three, with critiques of our techniques and teaching peppered with unfamiliar vistas and conditions. We saw jellyfish, barnacles and fish; marshes and hammocks; gulls and an eagle.
The opportunity to experience the tides and currents we’ve mostly only read about is a boon for Great Lakes paddlers like us. We also got some practice surfing waves that weren’t wind-generated.
Today was a relatively calm day. Even the famous and sometimes feared “triangle” was in a gentle mood. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Training with Ronnie and Marsha

During our three-month blogging hiatus, we didn’t hang up the paddles and mothball the kayaks. We were teaching for the Chicago Whitewater Association at the local YMCA, paddling on Wednesday nights in the huge UIC pool, and reading and thinking a lot about kayaking. But somehow, we didn’t feel compelled to write too much about it. There’s something about the indoor season that doesn’t lend itself to that sort of reflection.
All that should change now, at least for a few days. We arrived last night at Tybee Island, Georgia, with Lyn for four days of training with Ronnie Kemp and Marsha Henson of Sea Kayak Georgia. After our white-knuckle flight, we settled into the two-bedroom apartment attached to Marsha and Ronnie’s house, which is perfectly set up for paddlers. In addition to the basics (furnished kitchen, comfy beds, wi-fi), it has an outdoor shower for rinsing saltwater off gear, a bookshelf full of local guidebooks and paddling books and magazines, and a DVD cabinet full of paddling films. The brightly colored walls feature Marsha’s artwork, and the sun pours in through the large windows in the morning. It’s almost enough to make us want to sit around reading and listening to music, except that it’s blocks away from the water, and the reason we came is more compelling than the comfort indoors. We’re here to paddle.
It’s bitter cold here, at least by local standards: 26 degrees. That’s about 25 degrees higher than it is back home, but we probably wouldn’t be dressing for paddling outdoors if we were there and not here. Check back later for observations and images from our first day on the water here.

Signs of a bumpy time ahead?

One of Marsha's paintings hangs in a well-lit spot.

The apartment is on the left; Ronnie and Marsha live on the right.

Paddling the great indoors

The outdoor paddling season is far from over. We'll still be on the lake for another month or so (and, we hope, the annual New Year's Day paddle on the Chicago River). But the indoor paddling season has begun. It's a delightful period of overlap, when we can paddle in water that's 70 degrees one day and 50 degrees the next.

Dave Olson (left) visits with paddlers at the UIC open pool session.

Wednesday nights are open pool sessions at the University of Illinois at Chicago, thanks to Dave Olson of Kayak Chicago. Dave rents the pool for 40+ weeks and welcomes paddlers to pay by the night or by the season to use it. He also rents boats for those who arrange it in advance, and he offers lessons.
We mainly come to work on skills and enjoy weekly time on the water in the dead of winter. This past Wednesday was the first pool session of 2008/09, and most people just seemed happy to see one another again.

Wendy Madgwick and Hannah turn a single into a double.

Alec demonstrates a C-to-C roll.

Yep. Good decision.

Can't say we feel really sorry to miss out on that!

The hard decision not to paddle

We were supposed to paddle on the east side of the lake today with Keith Wikle, Doug Van Doren and Lori Stegmeier--kayaking friends we mostly see during the summer at various midwestern symposia.
But the weather had other plans. Over the past few days, we watched as the forecast grew increasingly unfriendly. Winds of up to 30 knots. Waves of 5 to 8 feet building to 8 to 12. Air temperatures in the lower 40s. Rain. Snow. Sleet.

The marine forecast this morning.

Webcam above the pier at South Haven at 10 this morning.
Keith says waves that go above the pier are 8 footers.

It's hard to decide not to paddle, especially when we've set aside the time and made arrangements with people we'd really like to see.
We're pretty sure Keith will hit the waves in his surf boat. We'll be thinking about him today and checking his blog tomorrow.

Paddles up!

Justine Curgenven. (Photo courtesy of Justine Curgenven.)

Over the course of two evenings, we watched This is the Sea 4. This is a generous package: one disk of shorter profiles of remarkable paddlers and locales; one disk with two longer expeditions.
Disk one follows Justine's now-familiar approach of documenting outstanding kayakers who collectively define the sport. But whereas This is the Sea 1, 2 and 3 were like a kayaking Who's Who and Where's Where , This is the Sea 4 widens the lens to explore the variation and diversity of what can be done with sea kayaks themselves. We meet kayak fishermen off the California coast, whitewater paddlers tackling the Ottawa River in sea kayaks, and a Norwegian father-and-son team who hop around on the tops of their boats in the fjords. We also meet a woman who nurses injured wombats back to health, and see Hadas Feldman on her home turf. The message of disk one is something like, "All over the world, people are pushing the bounds of what they and their boats can do. Don't be narrow-minded about what sea kayaking is about."
Disk two contains two expedition narratives that, like her earlier ones, show why sea kayak trips are so enticing but don't disguise how hard they can be. The Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) circumnavigation with Shawna Franklin and Leon Somme manages to be a loving portrait of a remarkable place, a profile of the whimsical and knowledgeable owners of Body Boat Blade, and a story all in one. (Those of us who met Shawna and Leon at the West Michigan Coastal Kayakers Association symposium last year got a preview of this trip.)

Shawna Franklin and Leon Somme. (Photo by Justine Curgenven.)

The circumnavigation of the south island of New Zealand with Barry Shaw is considerably more challenging. The two paddled 2,400 kilometers, many of them into stiff headwinds, with limited landing options that were further complicated by punishing surf. At one point, Justine develops an infection and has to be airlifted to a hospital. They often look exhausted and sometimes almost defeated, and share all of that in the footage. At some points, Justine is even too tired to laugh. It's really a brutally honest documentary; she shares the tough decisions, the discouragement and the fear as well as the elation and excitement. That's something we've always appreciated about Justine's work, and it's very much in evidence here.

Barry Shaw landing through surf. (Photo by Justine Curgenven.)

We've found, over the years, that we return to each of the This is the Sea DVDs to review segments we love. The same will be true with this one.
Justine and Barry will be showing a one-hour condensed version of This is the Sea 4 and talking about their circumnavigation on Friday, November 14 in St. Charles, IL. Admission is $10, half of which goes to support Chicago Adventure Therapy. There will be an after-party nearby. For tickets or more information, visit Geneva Kayak Center or call 630.232.0320.