Five years ago, Nancy Koeppen shared the following poem written by Bob Carter on the Milwaukee Sea Kayakers Yahoo Site.  As we prepare to celebrate another Thanksgiving, I’d like to share this poem with all of my readers.

“Thanksgiving Upon The Sea”  by Bob Carter
O Creator of the glorious stars of the heavens above and the [...]

Last month, while teaching kayaking at a local high school pool, I noticed a motivational poster taped on the window of the swim team’s office.  It was sort of a “creed” for swimmer’s.  It got me thinking that we, as canoeists and kayakers, needed something similar.  With apologies to the U.S.  Swimming Foundation, I must [...]

If you want to take your paddling skills to the highest level you can achieve, it is extremely important to get good instruction right from the beginning.  This little bit of advice may seem fairly self-evident and not particularly earth-shattering which is maybe why it is so often overlooked and ignored by beginning paddlers.
I’m currently [...]

On October 28, 2009, the State of Wisconsin enacted legislation that prohibits the transport of water or plants from one body of water to another on your boat, boat trailer, vehicle, or other gear. For kayakers that means that you need to make sure that you clean all water, mud, and weeds from the [...]

I’ve been reading some kayak-related blogs recently, something I haven’t had a whole lot of time to do before now.  Some are pretty interesting, some just seem to be a clearing house for press releases, and a few are a little scary.  The internet can be a great tool for finding information, just keep in [...]

It looks as if our January thaw is over and we’re headed back into the deep freeze.  Time to think about heading someplace warm for a week or two. There are almost an unlimited number of places that you could go if money is no object, but I have a suggestion for those of you [...]

I’ve had this dull, aggravating pain in my right upper arm all summer.  Even after the paddling season ended, it hasn’t gone away.  I was getting really concerned starting to imagine that I may have a bicep tear or some problem with my rotator cuff.  It wasn’t excruciating, so I didn’t want to waste the [...]

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently watching paddling DVD’s and videos.  Perhaps I’m just getting old and cranky, but in one of the whitewater instructional DVD’s students were told to “cock (their) wrist back” on the control hand in order to set the proper blade angle on the non-control blade when using a [...]

In the 1939 movie, Holiday Inn,  while eating his Thanksgiving feast, Bing Crosby listens to a recording of his song, “I’ve Got Plenty to be Thankful For” and all through the song morosely interjects complaints about his life.  I think a lot of Americans, myself included, tend to be just like Bing in the movie.  [...]

Just a quick note that I’ve been working on my website trying to clean up some of the organization.  For those of you who have been to the SherriKayaks website before, I haven’t removed anything that was there.  (I’ve actually added quite a few links and resources!)  I have moved some things around, hopefully making [...]