Days are getting longer. Finish your prep.
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48 days this year, just shy of 600 miles. High points were camping trips - Michigan’s Pine River, circumnavigating Drummond Island, and especially Ontario’s North Channel.
Drummond trip report
North Channel trip report
Plan two trips for next year: Georgian Bay’s McGregor Bay and Baie Fine, Killarney Provincial Park and Phillip Edward Island in French River Provincial Park.
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Rufi Paddle Year 2022
2022 Paddle Spots: Goose Creek, Bear Island, Merchants Millpond, Buffalo City, Wiggin’s Millpond , Dudley Island, Contentnea Creek, Dismal Swamp Canal, Philpott Lake, Cherry Branch Ferry, Black River/Three Sisters, Fontana Lake, Blount’s Creek, Shackleford Banks and Bogue Sound. All spots are in the state of NC.
Due to higher gas prices, we stayed closer to home, which is eastern NC. Only did three trips, that took more than one tank of gas.
2023 Paddle year starts later today.
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It was Maine last year. This year it will be Wyoming again. Finished Qruisers Petrel Play last spring.
Other distractions and “Author Itius” , my traveling partner, is not helping my mileage or woodworking. But I’m making progress at the farm.
This is East Bay on the Schoodic peninsula, one of our Maine campsites.
A friend logged 1030 miles in '22. He considers that a low year.
Here’s what I shared on my local paddling club forum: My paddling log for 2022 indicates 91 times on water- a benefit of being retired now. I knocked off a couple of new states- Delaware, New Jersey but overall scaled down the difficulty of my paddling a bit. I’d like to express thanks to all who came out and paddled or shuttled with me in 2022. Lots of great times, 623 miles paddled for an average of 6.85 miles paddled per day.
Arkansas- Mulberry wolfpen to turners bend 1x, Buffalo River boxley to highway 14 (4 days)
Delaware- Trussum Pond 1x, Trap Pond 1x
Florida- buck creek mangroves 1x
Indiana- Blue River 1x
Kansas- Arkansas River 1x
Kentucky- limestone mine paddling 1x (slade ky)
Maryland Pitts Creek 1x, Jane’s Island Salt Marshes 5x (Chesapeake bay)
Missouri NF of the White River 4x, Jacks Fork 2x, Red Mill Pond (Mingo NWR) 1x, Loudre River 1x
New Jersey- Wading River 3x
North Carolina: Toe 1x, Frenchbroad 2x
Oahu Hawaii- canal, flat island, Mokes, Kaneohe Sandbar 4x
Tennessee- Pigeon 1x, lower Noli 1x
Utah- Greenriver 5 days
Virginia- First Landing Chesapeake Bay 1x
West Virginia- Top Gauley-Cherry Combo2x, Cherry river 1x, Greenbrier 6x, down Elk 1x, New River: stonecliff to cunard 1x, Glade to Grandview Sandbar 24x, Cunard to Fayette Station 1x, Summersville Lake 1x, Potomac- NF of S. Branch Hopeville canyon 2x, NF. Potomac Barnum to Bloomington 1x, Gauley- crupperneck bend 1x, Gauley from near Donaldson 1x ,Bluestone river 3x, Birch River 1x, Lower Williams River 1x, lake stephens 1x
My plans for 2023, In. Jan I have jury duty but in Feb. I am looking to do some paddling in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. March I may drive up to Canoecopia in Wisconsin, The rest of March and all of April I plan to chase water in wv. I would really like to get on the upper shavers fork and part of loup creek for personal first descents in wv. I want to explore shades of death creek as well (sounds worse than it is).
I am going to meet my brother in May for overnight ducky trips on the Chama and Rio Grande in NM and then stay west and knock off Nevada, Montana and North Dakota in June and July. I’m always up for a bit of Idaho or Colorado as well
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Drop me a PM if you are in the MS Gulf Coast/New Orleans/Mobile region in mid Feb for some long boat remote marsh or near shore paddles.
sounds like a plan kayakhank, my longest boat is a 14’ rec boat (pakayak). in terms of planning ahead, where do you like to go? miles a day? speed? remote marsh sounds good but I’m not into big open water crossings to get there
We will stay along the coast or in rivers/estuaries - no big open water crossings required.
Depending on your physical size, I can get you a loaner 14’ or 17’sea kayak. Lots of paddling options depending on the weather and rains. Short for me is an hour or so covering 2.5 - 5 miles, or a 3 - 5 hours pushing up to 14ish miles. Some of my favorite local paddles are some of the shorter ones that other skilled paddlers don’t seem interested in paddling beccause they are not long enough. Some have sand beaches and some have no easy break points. For most of my river paddles, I use a Dagger Stratos 14.5L, that is my shorty kayak!
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So something like a dagger stratos would be a step up in terms of speed and design over anything I have. Many times I just make do on 'flatwater" with my ww pyranha 12r. I use it like a cross over boat or one boat to go anywhere. For this particular trip I am thinking my pakayak because I want to sleep in the rv and the rv rack is vertical on the rear of it (think short ww kayaks standing up on end). I just tend to be a bit slow and like to keep the distances short when with flatwater paddlers. Overall, I like this idea. You could teach me about long boats and about the most useful thing I could do is pick up the check for dinner. My rolling ability isn’t very good right now. I haven’t hit the pool sessions and if I don’t practice regularly I can’t roll when I need it. My artificial hips need regular workouts to maintain the motion. The pakayak is not set up to roll.
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I’ll shoot you a pm to firm things up.
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I really don’t know if I’ll get much opportunity to be in the water in 2023.
I’d really like to go, but our new baby will be about 6 months old when the season starts here, and still only about 10 months when the season stops again next fall. I normally kayak with my spouse, so I don’t know if we’ll go at all with our baby that young.
Good thread! The activity of some here is amazing!
I only got out a few times, as usual, but I did enjoy my 2 trips to the (TX Gulf) coast.
More exciting is 2023 and beyond. 2023 will be my last full year of work so I’m hoping to get out more often and for longer once retirement arrives. Also, my daughter just moved up to Maine, near the coast, so I’ll be back here to pick brains in the spring!
Happy 2023 all!
Lots of day trips in and around Vancouver, BC on Indian Arm and Pitt Lake, 5 days around around Galiano Island and 13 days through the Discovery Islands. Here’s a short video of our last day of 2022 on December 31, “Paddlin’ for a Thousand”.
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Nowhere near enough saltwater paddling, but I did paddle quite a bit inland. There’s a good sized lake about a mile from our house that we do a lot of paddling on, but it got hit with blue-green algae in August, so we needed to find another place for a quick local paddle until about October. Annual trip to Maine got rained out, and we came home early.
But, I did finally get my new canoe! With a double bladed paddle I can keep up with my better half in either of her sea kayaks. And she thought she’d have to stop and wait for me…hee hee hee!!
This year needs lots more saltwater and a lot of canoe!
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Wayne_Smith, what double bladed paddle did you choose?
Bending Branches Navigator Plus Hybrid Wood 2-Piece. I got the 225-240 cm adjustable length. I found that 230 cm is about perfect for my canoe.
I got a new Magic late in the season and used my 240 cm H20 Crystal X paddle as well as an older Werner Camano. Both paddles work well in my '04 Bell Rob Roy, but not sure it’s the best for the new Magic. It’s helpful to know what others are using. Thank you for sharing.
Got out once.
'Nuff said.
More in 2023.
2022 was a rough year for me.
It began well enough… I opted for better Crossbars for my car. AND… for the first time real saddles for the boats (as opposed to putting a over size pool noodle on the cross par and putting the boat on that.
Then I got rear ended, the car was totaled and so was I.
Got back from the MRI’s and all that bonzo medical stuff and my Ortho surgeon said want the good news or the bad.
Tell me the good… Well the 4 discs you had that were bulging haven’t gotten worse.
Whats the bad? You now have 5 bulging discs.
Ok so lets fix L5 like you fixed L4, and the doctor said no I want to do a spinal fusion.
So not opting for that it was 4 months of PT before I regained motion, and the ability to lift the boats.
So all in all not much paddle time when all was said and done.
I managed to get in the one race I signed up for back in FEB. but had only 3 days to practice before the big day.
On the up side I did come in 3rd with an average speed over the 3 mile race course, of 5.90 mph as calaculated base on Chrono-time.
My son (15 year old.) won his class, Juniors and was 9th overall out of a start of 63 or so people. he averaged 5.24 mph. In his brand new boat. Bought him a Tsunami 145, and well when it came in he had 4 days to practice.
after that I managed to get 3 more leisurely paddles in before November when it got way too cold.
Bought a Ikelos paddle from Werner, found the Aquabound Whiskey having a lower swing weight that the Accent I had been using for racing also had a smaller surface area, and it looks like that is what cost me second place in the race.
(first was no chance as that guy was in a surfski, for a kayak class, why they let him race IDK.)
So for 2023 I’m excited to run the Ikelos in the Race 3 mi to see if it improves my times, and hopefully in the 15 miler I usually do that I also did in 2021 (came in 1’st, average speed was 6 ishmph) I did it but the weight of the accent beat me up, so hoping the Ikelos, with roughly the same paddle surface area, but way less swing wight helps.
Other than that no real plans other than paddles to get ready for the races, and some leisurly ones on the local lake with the Wife and boy, and hopefully some on the Lower part of the susquehanna in the Rock canyons witht he family.
and of course Ive been dying to get out with @Jyak and see some of his stomping grounds on the Chesapeake bay we can compare notes since most of my speed runs have either been river, or lake and haven’t had to contest with waves and tide.
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