In over 20 years of canoeing and kayaking, I did something recently that I have never had to do before – I had to retire a life jacket from service due to equipment failure.  As I was getting my equipment ready before a class, I noticed the tear in the fabric around the neck.  I [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I ran across this blog post by Bryan Hansel, www.paddlinglight.com, talking about “How to Use a VHF Radio”.  It’s a very good article, thorough and easy to understand, so I wanted to share the link with my readers.  I don’t think I could have said it better myself.
I will be posting another video blog soon [...]

The U.S. Coast Guard is asking boaters (including kayakers) to take the time to label their boats, paddles, life jackets, etc. with their names and contact information in order to avoid initiating expensive and time-consuming search and rescue efforts when there isn’t actually a person missing.
When someone finds a kayak or other piece of paddling [...]

Back on August 4, 2010, I wrote a blog on pumps and paddle floats. One of the pumps I talked about included the Harmony High Volume pump.  I purchased two of these pumps at Canoecopia last March and used them in classes throughout the summer.  I liked the shorter length, high flow rate, and the [...]