Apparently, large fish are turning out to be a pretty efficient means for propelling a kayak. Maybe boat engines should be measured in fishpower instead of horsepower. Sure, horses can swim, but they are not that fast. Anyway, those marlins must be pretty damn tasty. Oh wait, it’s not about the meat – it’s about [...]

Here’s an update on this post. She finished! Here’s a link to the final article at the Telegraph: Blue Peter’s Helen Skelton ends epic Amazon kayak journey – Telegraph.. You can find links to the previous weeks’ articles in my previous post: Helen Skelton’s Amazon kayaking trip. The kayaking nerd/gear-junkie in me noticed that she [...]

View Larger Map If you live in the Seattle area, Lake Sammamish is a great place to have a relaxing and not too challenging paddle (assuming the weather is otherwise nice, of course). If you want to make a day of it, there are some opportunities coming up for exploring the lake. On March 7 [...]

She’s got blisters on her fingers! For anyone who has been following Helen Skelton’s kayak trip down the Amazon river, I decided to collect links to the various Telegraph articles and other sites here. Helen Skelton is a presenter for the BBC’s Blue Peter, which is a children’s show geared towards adventure and discovery. Blue [...]

View Larger Map Heck yes, you can go kayaking anywhere – even Iowa, where the roads are so straight you can fall asleep while driving and still be in your lane an hour later. Not only that, but Iowa will show you beginning kayakers a good time for free. Here are the details: Ad-Express and [...]

I don’t know jack about train watching except that sometimes you can get a pretty good view of certain railways while sitting on the water in a kayak. There are many situations where a kayaks allows you unobstructed and/or uncrowded views of certain subjects of interest, and this includes the massively powerful trains that run [...]

Seeing a whale while kayaking is an extra special treat. But unless you are very knowledgeable, you are likely to be disappointed if your only purpose for heading out in your kayak for the day is to see whales. While whale watching tours almost always find whales, they also have much faster boats and communicate [...]

I’ve seen this amusing shark buoy a couple times now. This one is in Lake Washington, somewhere off the West shore. I also saw one in the San Juan Islands. I think. There are many myths about shark buoys, including the idea that they eat people. In fact, cases where people are attacked by shark [...]