Paddle Posts

These past few month have flown by. I only have a couple more days of work and then I’m cut loose for good ?. On Oct 19th I’ll head to Tybee Island for the annual Sea Kayak Symposium put on by Sea Kayak Georgia. This is a fantastic time with a lot of great folks attending. This is a “must do” for me every year. More rolling, surf and rough water paddling and just a great time. A week on Tybee Island and then back to North Georgia for two days to swap out kayaks, finish off last-minute check list items and then head to the gulf. Iain and Dave, two great paddling friends are driving me down with all my gear. Pretty nice of them!!!

October 30th is day one of paddling. We are down to the wire. I’ve been making good progress on my “to do” list. Gears all ready, kayaks ready to go. I did a test pack this afternoon. Success ? all the gear including cold weather stuff, six gallons of water, solar panels, tent, chair, table, plenty of space in the pantry for groceries, etc. All good to go. I ended up using every nook and cranny ?. 
You will start seeing more frequent posts going forward and then regular updates when the adventure gets rolling ?

Time is counting down. 135 days before I stop working so I’m getting pretty excited. I continue to make progress on fine-tuning the gear list and swapping out items for smaller lighter weight items. I’ve finished all of the rigging on the Taran and getting it ready to go. I decided to take the Taran out for a spin and did a 28 mile paddle on the Saturday before Memorial Day. It was a great day – see pictures below. There will be very few updates between now and the middle of October and then I’ll start doing regular updates as we get close to the launch date. Time is flying by. 
Here comes the sun – new friends on the water – reflections – up to the rapids – another rest stop. 

  

The annual TIPS event was another fantastic time this past weekend The event was held at Camp Fellowship on Lake Greenwood, SC. The location was perfect for paddling, the weather could not have been better and all the friends to paddle with made the entire event a great success.

We had special mentors to help us all learn lots of new techniques. Christopher Crowhurst was on hand and spent most of the weekend standing in the water helping us learn new rolling techniques. A special thanks to Christopher for putting up with me and helping on my reverse sweep roll. I’ve been ordered to get serious about yoga and get more flexible. So that is what I’ll do. I spent most of the weekend going upside down working on my rolls. Dubside was on hand providing instructions on rolling and paddling techniques and also demonstrating rope techniques. That is an art form in itself. Jenna Padilla came all the way from Greenland to mentor us in paddling techniques as well. Jenna and Dubside gave two evening presentations covering the Greenland Qajaq games and Greenland culture. These presentations were very interesting and informative. Dubside does an outstanding job putting videos together showing all sorts of information on Greenland. For more information on our three special mentors please see the Mentor Biographies.

This is one of those great events that I’ll plan on doing every year. It’s so much fun, we all learn a lot and catch up with old friends and make new ones.

This Friday I’ll be joining other paddlers at Lake Greenwood SC for the annual TIPS gathering. This will be the second year I have attended. It is a lot of fun and a great learning experience. I’ll be sure to post an update on TIPS and some pictures. 

A little slow in getting this post ready to go. Last weekend at the annual CT reunion was an exceptional time. I met a lot of great individuals that have actually paddled the CT including Marc, Jake who just completed his adventure,  Rich who is doing it now, Jim who paddled with Marc.

And Mary who completed it a few years ago.
 As well as a few others.

I also met folks from the Florida Office of Greenways and Trails. Doug Alderson and Liz Sparks who are very dedicated to Florida paddling and good to know. In addition to all those individuals, I met a lot of resources available to assist going around the CT. I spent time talking with Dan Thompson who is the CT Trail Angel Coordinator (El Jefe according to Liz?) and many of the trail angels, all exceptional people. Not only was it good meeting and learning a lot about the CT, as well as resources and folks who are interested in helping out but we also had a great paddle on the Santa Fe River paddling up into a bunch of the different springs so all in all it was very valuable attending this years CT reunion.

If you ever paddle in Florida, you should consider joining the Florida Paddling Trails Association. Jill Lingard is the president and was at the reunion and facilitating the FPTA board meeting. Jill works hand in hand with Liz to help all Florida paddlers. I’ll post some pictures in the gallery so you can see some of the fun we had.

Not too many entries lately but still making good progress on getting ready for the big paddle. I’ve been paddling every weekend and messing around with the kayak getting it set up properly. I’ve also been fine tuning the draft paddle route and adding time to explore in various locations.  

I’m pretty excited about this coming weekend. I will be going down to Florida and meeting up with folks at the Florida CT reunion. It will be great to meet with some of the trail angels and some of the folks that have already paddled the CT as well as meeting with key individuals from the Florida Office of Greenways and Trails.  So, I’m pretty excited about that and will make sure that I do a Paddle Post entry and post some pictures from the CT reunion. 

I was out paddling yesterday. Water was cold but air temp got up to sixty. No wind with a little very light rain. Great paddle day. Spring is on the way. 

I’ve had a couple questions on mounting shock cord in the hull. I get wire tie mounts made for using epoxy to glue them in place. You can get them from Panduit. Very low profile and if you don’t want to use it for some time, just snip the wire tie out and leave the mount for future use. 

I’ve spent the past couple of evenings fine tuning this site and getting the word out. Looks like it worked. Over 350 views today. I suspect mostly just checking things out. Kind of fun sharing info this way. I’ve been in contact with a couple of Trail Angels already and that is a great thing. Liz, Dan and team have done a fantastic job setting up a CT support community!

Last week was quite the week in regards to the CT adventure. In my current position, I report to the President of the company division for the US. We had a good discussion and I filled her in on my plans. I know she probably thinks I’m nuts but there you go. So I have formally given notice that mid-October is when I will resign and move on to the next adventure in my life. She did congratulate me and took it in stride.

The next neat thing is that I was able to connect with two prior CT paddlers, Marc DeLuca and Jim Windle. They have a great CT web site that I’ve been poking around in for several months now. They have both offered to continue discussions and answer any questions I can come up with. Along with contacting both of those paddlers, I was also in contact with Liz Sparks, Paddling Trail Coordinator for the Florida Office of Greenways and Trails and Dan Thompson who is the CT Trail Angel Coordinator. Liz sent me information on the upcoming CT Paddlers Reunion in April. I’ll be attending that reunion in order to meet CT paddlers, CT Trail Angels and others from the Office of Greenways and Trails. This should be a great opportunity to not only meet fun paddlers but to also be able to “pick their brains” and learn a lot. Dan also offered to pass on my final paddle plans and get me connected with all the CT Trail Angels. I’ll be taking him up on this offer for sure.

It’s really nice to know there is such a great paddling community out there.

Along with all of that, I’ve spent most of the weekend getting this web site up and running. There are still lots of things to do but it’s coming together. It’s also another item in my planning list that I get to cross off.

So, this is the first “official” entry into the h2o Traveler Paddle Posts. Looks like I’m off and running :)