Call it bad luck, but in the last month I’ve had two students break my paddles when learning to do the standard paddle float self rescue.  Prior to this, I never had a paddle break in 13 years of teaching this skill.  In both cases, the paddles broke at the ferrule.  Both paddles were Werner [...]

April in the Midwest brings thoughts of severe storms and tornado awareness drills.  A local Milwaukee television station has partnered with Walgreen’s in Southeast Wisconsin to promote and sell NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather radios at a discount.  These weather radios only cost around $30 and sound an alarm whenever the National Weather [...]

Now that I’m a grandma, I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to teach my new granddaughter to paddle in a few years.  I had a chance to do this many years ago when my son and my nieces were little, but it seems like it’s even more important nowadays to get kids outside and [...]

One of my students asked me to write a blog about putting together a first aid kit.  Since this is an important piece of gear that all paddlers should carry with them, I will try to make some suggestions on getting training and assembling a good basic kit.  I am not a doctor or medical [...]

I was just at Canoecopia in Madison, Wisconsin, this past weekend.  As always, there were tons of great presentations on a wide variety of subjects relating to canoeing and kayaking.  I attended one seminar on “adaptive paddling” which is a term used to describe that group of paddlers who need to make some type of [...]

It’s still a little cold for most people to be paddling in Wisconsin since most of the water is still frozen.  But it won’t be long now.  Temperatures going above freezing and the shrinking snow piles incite almost terminal cases of spring fever.  The only real cure for paddlers is the coming of warmer air [...]

Here is the long-awaited fourth video in my series on the differences between  recreational, whitewater, and sea kayaks.  This video covers the characteristics of “sit-on-top” kayaks which can be designed for recreational use, whitewater paddling, and sea kayaking.  So if you are looking to get started in kayaking, you still need to understand the differences [...]

I was going to work on the fourth video in my series on different types of kayaks, but as I was doing my usual check of blogs and Facebook this morning, it became clear that this might be the time to give another reminder about the dangers of paddling in cold water.  Dick Silberman’s blog [...]

As part of my series in helping new paddlers learn about the different types of kayaks, I have just published another video blog.  This video talks about some of the basic characteristics that separate whitewater kayaks from recreational and sea/touring kayaks.  Here in southeast Wisconsin, we don’t have much in the way of nearby [...]

Last week I posted a video on the characteristics of recreational kayaks that set them apart from sea kayaks and whitewater kayaks.  Today, I’m posting the second video installment which will talk about sea/touring kayaks and how they differ from other types of kayaks.  Yet to come are videos on whitewater kayaks and sit-on-top kayaks.  [...]