It doesn’t happen often, but it’s nice when it does. My wife joined me for a leisurely evening paddle with one of our local paddle clubs. We paddled my Spirit II, and she did great – no fights erupted, and no divorce ensued. I don’t think she is hooked on paddling yet though, so there is still lots of solo paddling in my future…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eckilson/albums/72157667910165834
nice
just remember who’s the captain and you’ll be fine, lol!
Tandem is a fine way
to develop communication skills. In reality no one is in charge, both take care of their ends of the boat. As canoes don’t bend, cooperation is necessary.
And the bow does lead in some things…
Nice !
– Last Updated: Jul-08-16 10:57 AM EST –
I like that last picture very much.
Paddling with your spouse makes for a happy marriage.
Especially if she is the one doing the work
https://youtu.be/Q2xbZ6fzTFE
Jack L
Paddling with the spouse
– Last Updated: Jul-08-16 11:06 AM EST –
My wife & I paddled tandem for about 10 years. When we first married, she had never even been in a canoe.
As time passed, I started working with her on gaining & improving her paddling skills in some of my solo canoes.
Got her to take some private lessons at NOC, and later on, a whitewater class at NOC. She's been paddling solo now for many, many years. Has 2 of her own solo boats.
Works for us. She likes to lollygag & gab with other paddlers. I want to see what's around the next bend in the river. Her interest in paddling tandem now is ZERO.
BOB
We have solos too
I have a roylax Wenonah Wilderness and she got the last red roylax Vagabond that Wenonah made.
When we are in our tandem canoe, we like that best.
When we are in our solo canoes we like them best
When we are in our solo kayaks we like them best
Jack L
partner
Well we bought SOT together, then sea kayaks, then the 21’8" Libra XT tandem. Works great and don’t have to worry as much if a big boat wake comes or if it is rough out. Don’t even have to paddle now if I don’t want to. I tell her mush on!
Been paddling with the little bitch
quite a bit this year. Wife comes along occasionally http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u153/tsunamichuck/Paris/106_zpsizjiuy8b.jpg
Lucky man
There have been times people told me I was lucky that my wife endorses my paddling habit. I am. Yet, I envy the person who has a spouse that goes out paddling with them. Looks like she had fun. Good pics.
~~Chip
I always know who is in charge
I say the bow leads in almost everything
I love to paddle in the bow with a control freak in the stern that thinks they are in charge. I usually only paddle with them once, which is OK with both of us.
Hey Bob - don’t think my wife will take
up solo paddling anytime soon.
Yes I am!
Thanks.
Agood bow partner is hard to find.
So if you have to marry them to keep them do it.
To my wife tandem is were it is at. In a canoe or on a bicycle. To her working as a team is what makes canoeing fun. Yes we have solos. 4 of them. She just likes the bow of a tandem best.
Just got a double kayak
– Last Updated: Jul-09-16 8:17 PM EST –
Wife rides in front, and the middle hatch has a booster seat for our 2 year old. So far so good for shorter trips, will see how much use it actually gets.
In 33 years…
of marriage, my wife and I have gone through all kinds of permutations in paddling. We started out in tandem canoes, with her sitting in the front and only paddling when she felt like it. But soon she wanted to paddle stern. I thought that was great…she could paddle while I fished. I soon figured out, however, that the reason she wanted to paddle and “let me fish” was because she could speed up our trips–I realized I was frantically trying to hit good fishing spots as we zipped by them even though I was gently suggesting she slow down a bit.
Next came the solo canoe phase. She decided she loved paddling solo canoes, since she could control her own speed and loved the fun of paddling a good solo canoe. But this phase ended when she developed arthritis in her shoulder and found paddling painful. Which led us back to paddling tandem, with her paddling only enough to help through riffles and rapids, otherwise resting her shoulder. And then she decided to try a solo kayak, and found that she could use a double blade with far less shoulder pain. Which has now led back to her paddling whatever she feels like…everything from sitting in a raft and reading while I row, to holding down the bow of the tandem canoe, to paddling a kayak herself, to paddling the old solo canoes with a double blade.
and it is…
all good.
What nutjob said tandems were divorce machines?
good on you
After a moratorium of a couple of decades my wife has gone back to paddling in a tandem with me.
In prior years on one occasion she phoned for a cab on an overnight downriver trip on the St. Croix river to come and get her and take her away some 10 miles or so above the take out. During another multi-day trip in the Adirondacks on a particularly windy day on Long Lake she threatened to jump out of the canoe, swim to shore, and catch a plane back to our home in Pennsylvania.
Paddling together
– Last Updated: Jul-10-16 12:31 PM EST –
I did a significant percentage of my paddling with my ex-wife in our MR Explorer. We paddled the Allegash in Maine twice and did quite a few paddle camping trips in the Adirondacks together. Not to mention numerous day trips on local lakes and rivers.
She was a great paddling partner. She was never the sort to just sit there and let me do the work. She was a complete novice when we started paddling together but mastered some advanced strokes by the end.
In the end paddling together had nothing to do with the breakup of our marriage. In fact it probably help keep our marriage intact longer than it otherwise would have.
After the divorce I treated myself to a solo canoe and the Explorer has sat unused - until recently. I have a new girlfriend now and we've been out in the Explorer on some local lakes. She's a novice, but picks things up quickly. I think she is a keeper.
Had to chuckle on the "Long Lake"
experience.
I wouldn’t have blamed her one bit.
One time several years ago during the ADK 90 miler, the wind was quartering at about 20 all the way from one end of the lake to the Raquette river.
Most of the solo racing boats either dropped out or capsized and there were a lot of tandems swimming also.
At one point there was a war canoe parallel to us about 75 feet away and a much higher gust, rolled them right over.
At about that time we were ready to call for a taxi, but luckily managed to make it to the river upright.
jack L