I was stunned last evening to see a message that extreme sea kayaker, Eric Soares passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on Wednesday, February 1, 2012,.  He was only 58 years old.
For those of you who may be relatively new to paddle sports or are not familiar with sea kayaking in particular, Eric Soares was a [...]

On a cold, rainy fall day at the end of the paddling season, here are a few things that a canoeist/kayaker can be thinking about.

If you’ve worked on improving your skills all summer, perhaps it’s time to consider purchasing a dry suit to extend your season.
If you prefer not to paddle in anything but warm, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

It doesn’t take most people very long to get comfortable paddling a sea kayak on an inland lake.  The boats, despite the seeming narrow width, are surprisingly stable once you get the feel of the balance.  Where most paddlers run into some problems is when you start introducing the variable of waves and breaking surf.  [...]

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 [...]

I’ve been pretty busy lately teaching kayaking at some local high school physical education classes.  The teaching isn’t too hard, but all the boat loading, unloading, and gear hauling takes its toll on me physically, not to mention having to get up at 5am this week.  As a result, I haven’t gotten a blog posted [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]