On Kayaks

Kayak Journal

Friday, February 8th, 2010. On Iceland.

Three years ago, I first read the chapter written by Greg Stamer in Eastern Arctic Kayaks on the use of the Greenland paddle. Since then I have followed his articles in the Masiq, and the occasional piece published in sea kayaking magazines.
This article on the Iceland circumnavigation was published in the October 2008 issue of Sea Kayaker Magazine, and having sorrily missed to renew my suscription, it just passed under the radar.
These are the first paragraphs that account for the Southern coast where Freya Hoffmeister shot a conspicuously good photo of Greg standing on a shore of black volcanic ash with his arms spread open against a steady head wind:

We pushed hard to reach the settlement at Höfn to resupply before a forecasted storm slammed into the exposed coast. My muscles were screaming for rest, as we had already covered 56 miles (90 kilometers). It was nearing midnight, but this close to the Arctic Circle the sun still burned brightly on our faces and illuminated the volcanic landscape and the milky white waves laden with glacial silt. With 24 hours of daylight we could paddle as long as our strength held out. Standing between us and the dream of collapsing into our sleeping bags was the needle thin inlet at Höfn (meaning “harbor” and pronounced “Hup” like a hiccup). Höfn is regarded by many as the most dangerous inlet in Iceland. More than 50 people have lost their lives to its fast tidal rapids, jagged rocks and constantly shifting black volcanic sandbars.
I poured out maximum power. Normally this would have me racing at six knots or more but I was virtually at a standstill among the stark black boulders guarding the inlet. Sweat trickled inside my drysuit and my face felt hot and flushed. My strength would not last long. Freya too was only managing to keep from getting washed out to sea. We adjusted our course slightly to ferry glide across the main flow of the current and slowly clawed our way across the inlet mouth to a small eddy on the western edge of the inlet where we could catch our breath in the gently swirling water.
Immediately before us were car-sized rocks standing between the sea on one side and a source of outflow from Europe’s largest glacier, Vatnajökul, on the other. Just upstream from us was a long field of white, steep and confused standing waves created by the tidal race that can flow at 10 knots or more. We would have to wait hours for the tide to change, portage overland to bypass the inlet or go on the offensive and head directly into the violence. We were tired and chose to go for it. It was the wrong decision.

 

Posted on Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 01:15AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010. This is canoeing.

I thought that open canoeing might be fun -the Canadian sort of fun- but also potentially boring, the kind of paddling done in webbing seats while surrounded by 60 litre blue barrels.
Besides, the mere thought of a coach aproaching me smiling in knee pads over bare legs sparked off sudden flashes of light and a impression strong enough to induce retinal detachment
Justine Curgenven got into it and proved me very, very, very wrong.
Posted on Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 01:43AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010. Misha in the Faroe Islands.

Misha Hoichman has just made available a new gallery of exceptional photos taken on August 2009 when he paddled for 16 days in the North Atlantic archipelago, covering 180 nautical miles.
The Faroe Islands that lie in the path of depressions moving northeast are dominated by dark tholeiitic basalt lava and sweeping green cliffs. There tidal streams run strongly both around and between the islands, reaching 11 knots in places at the equinox, creating big seas at the entrance of fjords.
Just the campsites are tolkienesque. See.
Posted on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 11:53PM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail

Monday, January 25th, 2010. Leadership strategies.

The importance of effective group control cannot be over-emphasized. Certainly.

· C4 Show concern for the general welfare of other group members.

· C5 Demonstrate the capability to handle a range of incidents.

Saturday, January 16th, 2010. Sea to Sky Cam.

Three years ago Bryan Smith of Reel Water Productions and Matt Maddaloni strung a 3/4” steel cable and hung a portaledge from it.  Some of the best kayak footage was captured at the time.
Now since the summer of 2009 Bryan and Matt, an expert rigger and engineer, joined to design a remote radio controlled cable cam robot. The  camera that can be driven at over 60 kph by a motor, has remote pan, tilt, roll, zoom and focus control, and has developed now to include a track and dolly system and a radio controlled camera helicopter.
Little time before the Ashlu Creek, a tributary of the Squamish River in British Columbia  was dammed to build a 49 megawatt hydro installation below the canyon, National Geographic hired Bryan Smith and Matt Maddaloni to document the last season of the short and swift river. Steel cable lines were suspended over 600 foot spans over the falls and some of the highest drops of Ashlu Canyon, and a portaledge suspended on a line from where a camera operator laid down shooting while a rigger controlled the speed down the line to shoot team paddlers Todd Gillman, Eric Shertzel, Chris Tretwold, Shane Robinson and Max Kniewasser, seal launching, jumping over falls, and gliding down over fast moving pools and rapid.
Regarding the shooting, Bryan wrote on his blog:

We had pitched this story to National Geographic because we knew that we could pull off some of the most amazing whitewater angles.  Because it is so close to my house, I was able to rally up for several scouting missions to scope angles, make decisions on cable cam locations and get a solid game plan to shoot it over 3 days.  For me the whole concept of filming has really evolved in the past year. It used to be that we would all go up to the river for the weekend and I would paddle down the river and film what I could.  Fast forward to the present. For this shoot, I was coordinating 2-3 cameras, helping rig 600 foot spans of cable for the cable cam, communicating with the team of paddlers to assure we had them dialed and millions of other details to ensure success. Fun but hours and hours of hard work.  While it may seem over the top to some boaters, it is what makes a professional product.  After all we were on the hook for National Geographic so needless to say those two words put a bit of pressure on!
In a short time, Bryan and Matt have already shot 6 TV segments National Geographic Channel with stories about Base Jumping, Slacklining, Climbing, Kayaking, Ice Climbing, Mountain Biking and Snowboarding, and two web TV series with stories on Mountain Biking, Trail Running, Bouldering, Sea Kayaking, Climbing, Surfing and Skiing for Arcteryx and Patagonia.
Recently a selection of the unbelievably beautiful footage shot with the remote controlled cable camera was made available. It’s hard to watch and not be stoked.

Sunday, January 10th, 2010. Augustine Courtauld.

Augustine Courtauld, August as he was known, was born in Bocking, Essex, in 1904 in a Huguenot family who had made a fortune in the manufacture of artificial silk. He was educated at St. Christopher, at Charterhouse and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in engineering and geography. In 1926 and 1929 he was with James Wordie in Greenland; the first expedition to take gravity readings in the Franz Josef Fjord area and to explore the Petermann Peak range, the second to climb it.
Early in 1930 Courtauld met Henry George “Gino” Watkins who was planning an expedition to Greenland to explore the chances of an air route to western Canada by the shortest route. This fortuitous encounter made the British Arctic Air Route Expedition possible, as it was the generous financial support from the Courtauds that allowed Watkins to set off, for which Gino showed gratitude until his premature death.
August was aged twenty-six when on July 1930 he joined Watkins and a team of other thirteen youthful English scientists to survey the east coast of Greenland and monitor weather conditions there, the information being needed for the planned air route from England to Winnipeg, establishing meteorological stations, the farthest of which was to be located at  8,000 feet high, 140 miles inland on the Greenland Ice Cap.
On 6th December 1930, Courtaud volunteered to remain alone through the winter on the Greenland ice cap to make meteorological observations. Courtauld faced considerable risks. A few months ago, the worsening weather had hampered a German scientific expedition, 300 miles north of Ice-Cap Station, led by the geophysicist Professor Alfred Wegener, famous for pioneering the theory of plate tectonics. When the weather drove back a motor-sledge party attempting to re-supply the German Ice-Cap Station Eismitte , the fifty-year-old Wegener decided on a dash with dog sledges and Eskimo drivers. Following an Eskimo strike, Wegener continued on with two men and reached the Station under appalling conditions. With not enough food to support all the men until relief came at the end of April Wegener made the return journey with one man and the dogs, all dying on the way.
According to his agreement with Courtauld, with the expedition’s two little Moth planes out of commission, Watkins led a party from the base camp near Angmagsalik in March to relieve Courtauld. They searched in vain for his hut in the snow, finally had to return for more supplies. Once again Watkins went to get his friend who had provisions to last only until May 1st, and failed again.
Then in London, great activity began. Captain Ralph Raynor of the British Royal Signal Corps, who is engaged to marry young Courtauld’s sister, organized a relief expedition with the unlimited backing of the elder Courtauld. He hired Captain Albin Ahrenberg, a Swedish flyer who last year attempted an Arctic flight to the U. S., to fly to the rescue in a big Junkers seaplane. Last week Capt. Ahrenberg flew over the Greenland ice cap, saw below him a sturdy party of four men following a dog team. Leader Watkins had succeeded on his third attempt, was already leading Courtauld back to the base. Ahrenberg dropped supplies and mail, returned to civilization with the good news.
Between December 6th, 1930 and May 5th, 1931, Courtauld spent five months in solitude in the middle of the Greenland ice-cap, cut off from all communication, conducting meteorological observations every three hours. Ferocious storms caused his weather station to become completely buried, leaving him trapped in his camp under the snow for the last six weeks. By April 5th, only two candles and a cupful of paraffin remaining. He had finished the chocolate.  His tobacco is almost gone. On April 13th he smokes his last pipeful. “There is now precious little to live for”, he notes in his diary. On April 20th, he lights his last candle. On April 26th just two biscuits remain.  He is smoking tea leaves. Only half a cup of paraffin is left; there will be no way to melt snow for drinking water when it is ended. On May 1st he finishes his final biscuit. He still has a little pemmican and some oatmeal, but later that same day the stump of the last candle burns out. For the following four days he lies in cold, continual dark. On May 5th, as he kneels over the saucepan heating porridge for his breakfast, the jets of the Primus falter, splutter … and expire.  The last of the paraffin has gone.
On May 5th the weather had cleared up and the third relief team, with Watkins and Frederick Spencer Chapman and John Riddoch Rymill, made good progress. Arriving at the station they spotted a tattered Union Jack at the tent site, noticing a ventilation pipe sticking out of the snow: Gino called down and a voice answered back. After 150 days alone Courtauld was still alive! The party returned with Courtauld to base in triumph on 11th May.
Only once did Courtauld in his diary reflected on the causes of his solitude at any length. This was much later, after three months at the station, when the paraffin was running low and he was lying half the time in darkness, with only hot porridge in the mornings to warm him. His modest words still stir the heart:
Why is it men come to these places? So many reasons have been ascribed for it. In the old days it was thought to be lust for treasure, but the treasure is gone and still men wander. Then it was craving for adventure. There is precious little adventure in sledging or in sitting on an ice cap. Is it curiosity? A yearning to look behind the veil on to the mysteries and desolations of nature in her forlorn places? Perhaps, but that is not all. Why leave all whom we love, all good friends, all creature comforts, to collect a litde academic knowledge about this queer old earth of ours? What do we gain?
Do we in fact morally bury ourselves in fleeing from the world? Do we simply rot or grow rank like some plant thrown over the garden wall, or do we rather come nearer to reality, see more clearly the Great Purpose behind it all in stripping our souls of the protection of our friends and in putting from us the pleasures of the body? How little the worries of the World seem to be in such a situation as this; how grand and awful the things that are here, the things that grip the heart with fear, the forces that spin the Universe through Space.
In leaving behind the transitory hopes and fears of pathetic humanity, does one, perhaps, come closer to the things that abide, to the forces which endure?
1958, Wilfrid Noyce

Thursday, January 7th, 2010. Kayalite KLT-1050 Deck and Stern Light.

A new outdoors company from Boston, Kayalu, will release a new kayak light beacon on February 1st, 2010. The light will be the tested Tektite Mark III that illuminates a reflective white surface with a bright white LED whose brightness exceeds SOLAS specified range of 2 Nm for sternlights. The Tektite Mark III multiple-LED was considered but rejected because excessive brightness became in testing an impediment to night vision.
The visibility is 180 degrees which exceeds that of 135 degrees specified by COLREG 1972.
The novelty of the beacon lays in the multi-purpose mast that is rugged, reliable, and made of marine grade materials impervious to corrosion. The mast is designed to absorb and react to moderate impacts, and can be secured to any single point of attachment on the deck surface, such as an eyelet, eyepad, topside drain plug or shackle. In unavailable, the mast can be secured to any taut bungee cords running across the afterdeck with the quick snap of a steel clip, tug on a tensioning cable, and cleat off the cable with a single hand.
The sternlight has been intentionally kept under shoulder height to shield the bow and forward surfaces from illumination that may impede the paddler’s own forward visibility. In order to meet  the Convention for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea it should be noted that a vessel under oars should ave ready at hand an electric torch or lighted lantern showing a white light which shall be exhibited in sufficient time to prevent collision (Rule 25-d-ii).
The Kayalite KLT-1050 will retail for $39.95.

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010. Gordon Brown en espaƱol.

Simon Willis from Sunart Media has made available eight downloadable pdf files with the translations into Spanish of the eight coaching sessions in the Dvd Kayaking with Gordon Brown. The Spanish translation is meant to be read as the images are watched, and highlighted in bold, is interspersed between the full English transcription of each sequence.
Not only the translation will help the Spanish speaking audience, but the transcription will guide many who speak English as a second language to go over each skill as Gordon Brown explains it.
As a sidenote, Ocean Paddler Magazine has issued today through its site in Facebook a time-limited offer to subscribe to 12 issues of the magazine receiving as well a copy of Sea Kayaking with Gordon Brown.
That is 12 issues of Ocean Paddler, plus the DVD for just £50, including all postage.
Posted on Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 08:15PM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , , , | Comments2 Comments | EmailEmail

Friday, January 1st., 2010. Medic! Medic!

Often in expeditions it is regarded as primordial to have a seasoned medic that confronted with an emergency, keeps a splendid control of himself.
I had no idea.
Posted on Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 02:59AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail

Thursday, 31st. December, 2009. Per aspera ad astra.

After a perturbing delay of twelve days in the freight of their kayaks, Marcus Demuth and Biff Wruszek set off yesterday from Punta Arenas on the Brunswick Peninsula of mainland Chile, changing their initial plan of launching by the Beagle Channel, from Ushuaia, on the Argentinian southern coast of the island of Tierra del Fuego.
Braving South, the Tierra del Fuego Expedition will attempt the first circumnavigation of Isla Grande Tierra del Fuego, a journey of over 1,100 nautical miles and sixty days that will be undertaken counter-clockwise and take the expeditioners along the Cordillera Darwin, a long and wide mountain range mantled by an ice field, in the western and southern coasts, within the Chilean half of the island that reaches up to the Beagle Channel. After it, awaits the particularly hazardous Cape Horn, the northern boundary of the Drake Passage, so often lashed and whipped by strong wind, large swells and heavy gales.
The climate in Tierra del Fuego is a very inhospitable, ranging from subpolar oceanic and subantarctic to polar, which is fantastic for preserving the glaciers but hard on leisure camping.
During their worrying delay, Marcus and Biff who received the support of both the Argentinian and Chilean navies and were generously indulged by local paddlers, acclimatised splendidly to Fuegan costums, sipping mate, eating beef, drinking cerveza Fueguina, even considering undertaking the expedition in ruddered kayaks.
However, Cape Horn begged for a Nordkapp, and the expedition is sponsored by Valley Sea Kayaks, Werner Paddles, Kokatat, Outdoor Research, Exped, Globe Wireless, KayakPro, The Manhattan Kayak Company, The Kayak Centre of Rhode Island, Spot, Sigg, Princeton Tec, Shred Ready, and SeaPack.
So the last salute of the year goes to Marcus and Biff who camp now somewhere north of Dawson Island. May the wind be always at their backs.
Posted on Friday, January 1, 2010 at 02:54AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail
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