Category: Kayaking

Today was the first of this year’s edition of Baycreek’s famous “Downwinder” series. Basically Ken figures out which way the wind is blowing on the lake, and arranges a boat shuttle so that we can put in and paddle with the wind and waves for a decent distance.

Today, the wind was blowing from the west, and the waves were decently high. We put in at Little Pond, in Greece, and paddled to Irondequiot Bay outlet. As is usual for Lake Ontario, the waves were at an angle to the shore, so we paddled out a bit and then turned downwind to surf. The waves were big, but they were moving faster than you could surf them, so you’d get on a wave, get a short ride, and then it would overtake you. You’d then try to build up some speed before the next one, but the distance between them was too short. Not too long into it, I realized that the other two kayaks, Paul and Matt, were behind me and I couldn’t turn around to see them. I also realized that we’d cut downwind too early and so the waves were carrying us into the middle of the pier at the Genesee River. So I was trying to paddle at an angle to the waves, increasing the difficulty – when a bigger wave hit, you’d have to turn towards the middle of the pier again, and then when you got a lull turn almost 90 degrees to the waves and paddle hard to make up some distance to clear the pier. And to add to the difficulty level, I was also getting hit with waves that had bounced off the pier and back at me.

I managed to just clear the pier, passing a few feet away, which was much closer than I’d hoped. After I cleared it, I kind of blundered in front of a sail boat coming out of the river, but he turned to avoid me and didn’t even yell at me. (It was about 6pm and there was a continual line of boats coming out of the river.) I cleared the river and got into what seemed like much easier waves without the bounces from the pier, and I could finally look around a bit and have a drink. Paul came around the end of the pier and yelled to me something about Matt. I turned around to paddle back to him to see what the problem was – I think he thought that Matt might have abandoned the downwinder and returned to the put-in. As I got up close to him, I was back in the churn of waves from upwind, echoes from the piers, the current from the river, and lots of boat wakes, and I dumped. Unexpectedly, however, when I attempted to remount instead of getting stabilized I went over the other side. And again and again. I asked Paul to come up to let me lean on his boat to stabilize, but when he managed to make it up to me I went over again. There was a largish sailboat hanging around asking if we needed help. Initially I waved them off, but after the fourth or fifth attempt to remount I was getting tired, so I asked them if they could tow me into the more sheltered water behind the pier. They threw me a rope and towed me, but when we got there, instead of just using their boarding ladder to stabilize myself as I remounted, they insisted that I come aboard “for a rest”. They were very insistent, and because they’d helped so much at this point I didn’t want to be rude and force my opinion. So I came aboard.

They ended up driving me all the way to Durant beach, with Paul and Matt paddling along behind us. Sitting there on their boat “resting” made me cold and cramped up, but after they anchored in 5 feet of water off Durant beach, I was able to use their ladder to stabilize myself and remount. I paddled off cautiously – the waves were diminished and only coming from one direction, but like I say, I felt kind of cramped up and cold so I wasn’t at the top of my game. Again we had to head out to sea to get a better angle to our destination so we could surf there instead of going at 90 degrees to the waves. And again, I don’t think we went out far enough, because later I found myself trying to surf at an angle to make it to the beach that was our destination. Still getting only short runs, but it’s better than paddling across the waves, anyway.

Just off the beach, though, I caught a wave that didn’t overtake me and didn’t die. It was the longest fastest run of the night – I glanced down at the GPS at one point and I was hitting 15km/hr. That was the highlight of the night for me.

Good news! You can now order Vaikobi gear from TC Surfski in the US. No more uncertainty about customs duty!

I was looking for a new paddling short because my Mountain Surf shorts were chewing up my back where the drawstring and laundry tag was rubbing between my back and the bucket of my surf ski, and my NRS Hydroskin shorts were so hot I’d seek out water coming over the side of my ski just to cool off my ‘nads. So I was looking for something high waisted like the Hydroskin shorts, but with a lighter material. Most of the shorts I found on-line seemed to be made of some form of neoprene like the Hydroskin, so I was unsure if they’d be any better. Based on a post on Facebook, I thought I’d give Vaikobi a try.

Vaikobi is an Australian brand with no distributor here in the US, but they offer free shipping for any order over $150 AUD (about $140 US), so I ordered a few things to hit that mark. Their gear comes as either “V Heat” for warm weather, or “V Cold” for cold weather, and they had paddling shorts in the “V Heat” range which seemed ideal. Every item on their web order form has a drop-down for the colour, but there isn’t much point because everything only comes in one colour combination, usually some shade of black or grey.

The shorts arrived yesterday and I went for a paddle in them in 81°F weather.

First off, I should say that they look great. They really fit well, and they’re extremely comfortable. They have a flat waistband, and the waistband is high enough that it doesn’t rub between your back and the boat. The seams are well stitched without anything to rub on you or irritate and no stupid tags or hang straps. They have an inner pad, almost like a bike short chamois, but smaller and less stiff that doesn’t interfere with your ability to rotate in your seat. But most importantly, I kept cool, even when paddling hard in hot weather. And when I fell in, they drained and didn’t trap the water underneath. And after hanging in my bathroom overnight, they appear to be dry enough to paddle in today.

All in all, I’m extremely satisfied with them, and I’m planning to order another pair. I just wish they had a few colour choices.

Update: Three weeks after receiving my order, I got a bill from a customs broker who handled the order. They want about 25% in duty, plus two $15 handling fees, for a total of $95 on a $245 order (obviously I didn’t just order the one pair of shorts, more about that later). I’ve ordered a lot of stuff from overseas in the past, but never clothing, and never been charged duty, so I wasn’t expecting this. I don’t know whether somebody screwed up and misclassified the items so they got hit by a higher tariff rate than is normal, or if that’s just normal for imported clothing, but that seems like a huge extra charge that I was not expecting. Especially since I made another order from Vaikobi a week ago and I’m probably going to get another bill for that. I don’t know about you, but for me that really changes the dynamic of ordering. Not only are the prices going to be much higher than you’d think looking at the site, but also there is essentially a $30 per shipment “handling fee” from the broker. Before this bill, I was considering making a third order in the spring. Now, I’m wondering if I can re-purpose some running or cycling gear instead. And that’s too bad, because so far I love everything I’ve got from them.

Update 2: I’ve been contacted by Pat from Viakobi. He thinks that the short, because it’s made with a neoprene fabric, should be subject to a 4% duty rather than the 25.9% duty on other clothing made from synthetics. He thinks that might apply to the V Cold pant, V Cold Plus L/S Top as well, but unfortunately not the V Cold S/S Top and other items in my two orders. So that might change the balance of payments to the better for those items.

Update 3: Pat now tells me that they have their first US dealer, “TJ Surf Ski in Lake Michigan”, which unfortunately I can’t find online. Even better he says they’re importing their products into the US themselves through their own logistics facility. I have high hopes that this means the price you see on the order form will be the actual price you pay. Which is awesome, because I love their stuff.

Update 4: The US dealer is TC SurfSki, so now I order the best gear I’ve ever paddled without worrying about the duty. And so can you.

I ordered some new kayaking gear, and I’m going to use a picture Vicki took of it as an excuse to brag.
Last year, prompted in part by a discovery that I was too fat to ride on the zip line at Whistler, B.C, I decided to get serious about weight loss. That was the wake-up call, but the motivation was the realization that if I ever wanted to get back paddling after my shoulder recovered, the only way I could make sure I didn’t re-injure it immediately like I’d done after the first surgery was to start off being lighter than I was before I injured it in the first place. So thus began the journey.

Vicki and I have done Weight Watchers before, but before it was her idea and I didn’t really care that much. This time, I had motivation, and the Weight Watchers iPhone apps make it so much easier to to charge of your own diet. And after 12 months of counting points, thinking “when I hit this milestone, I’ll reward myself with a big plate of wings” and then not “rewarding” myself (or on one occasion, “rewarding” myself and then feeling sick afterwards), I can proudly say that I’m lighter now than at any time since about second year university. The kayaking clothes pictured above are size “L”, after decades of wearing XL, 2XL or XLT. A few weeks ago I bought some jeans with 34″ waist and discovered that they’re a little loose. I was wearing a 40″ waist 12 months ago.

When I was kayak racing in 2010, I weighed 240-250 pounds. When I had that revelation in Whistler, I was 275. As of yesterday I was 208, and I’m thinking I could get down to 200 if I keep this up. I have loads of “fat clothes” that I’m hoping I’ll never have to wear again. I think Men’s Wearhouse is going to make a fortune off me.

So I’ve been neglecting my blog a bit in favor of Facebook, but good things have been happening.

Last week I went out and paddled 10 miles, for the first time since 2010. I felt really good and didn’t have to stop and rest at all, and more importantly I wasn’t horribly sore the next day. To me that felt like “I’m back” and I’ve started thinking I might have a racing “career”, or at least a year or two, ahead of me.

Unfortunately, a few days later I tried it again with much worse results. This time I went out expecting cool temps and overcast skies, but as soon as I hit the dock the sun came out and the temperature soared, and I “died” on the way home. I ended up frustrated, sore, and with a horrible sun burn. My shoulder is telling me that maybe 10 mile grinds are actually a bit too much for me at this stage in my recovery.

Meanwhile, Epic Kayaks announced a new V10 Sport. My V10 Sport is old and battered and has had many owners. The new one has some nice features and I’d be proud to paddle a bright shiny new boat. But then I got thinking that instead of buying pretty much the same boat as the one I’ve already got, why don’t I buy something faster? So then I started thinking about the Epic V12. I went and paddled one and found it twitchy as hell, but definitely something I could master over time. But meanwhile, I also thought if I was going to get a new boat, instead of trading up my V10 Sport, I should probably get rid of my old Looksha, since I never paddle it any more. So I took a free listing on paddling.net figuring that as a fairly specialized kayak I’d get more interest from a specialized crowd than you’d find on Craigslist. But Craigslist allows pictures and a longer description, so I figured I’d give it a try there before spending money on a premium listing on paddling.net.

And that’s when I found it. There was a listing for a Think Legend for what I’d consider a dirt cheap price. The pics looked good, and the guy said he’d reduced the price from a previous listing. A bunch of reviews said that the Legend is nearly as fast and less tippy than the V12. It seemed like too good to be true. So I made the arrangements and drove off to take a look. The owner lives on the river in Cato, NY. He’d evidently bought it because it was one of the fastest kayaks in the world, but not realizing how much more skill a faster boat takes. He was pretty impressed by my ability to keep it upright and drive it at a fairly fast pace. And I can feel that someday I’m going to e pretty fast in it. So of course when I came back in and he helped me carry it up from the dock he asked if I wanted it back on his rack, or on my roof rack. I wanted it on my roof rack.

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So in the last week I’ve paddled three times with other people, for a total of 15 miles. That’s probably more than I paddled the entire month of August last year. And it felt so good. Not just to be out paddling, but to paddle with friends and re-experience the camaraderie and fun.

My shoulder is pretty sore after each paddle, but the recovery the next day is pretty encouraging. Yesterday Dan and I worked on a change to my technique that kept my hands lower to keep pressure off my shoulder – it used different muscles in my core, and they hurt while I was paddling and they feel quite tired today. I’m going to keep at this to see if it helps.