It’s the weekend. Let’s get all the negativity out of our systems with one long rant of the things that you’d fix in other people’s paddling lives…
Safety of their paddling. Understanding risk assessment when they leave shore.
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The problem with our paddling lives is it’s too cold to paddle.
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Canoes/kayaks/SUPs left sitting at the only good place to put-in and take-out. It’s especially frustrating when you’re coming in from a paddle and try to align your boat parallel to the shore to get out but inconsiderate people have left their boats beached all along the one good place to take out. Putting in isn’t quite as frustrating because you can ask people to move their boats (and explain why) so they might learn something about put-in/take-out etiquette.
Edit: I’m talking more about paddle craft put-ins. The same can be said though for power boat launches when paddle craft take up room at the ramp or dock.
Tom
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For me it’s simple: wear a pfd, dress for immersion, boat in a venue that matches your skillset. If you don’t do those things then you’re doing it wrong!
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Today on Long Island I’d say yes 22° F 35 mph winds.
Many let that fact escape them. Especially if new.
Folks that paddle or just sit in the middle of the “big boat” channel and cause the powerboats to have to do all sorts of weird evasive actions to not hit them. I have a 38’ sailboat so I see both sides of the issue as I frequently paddle from the marina. The college campus next door rents kayaks and SUPs to students and clearly do not convey that small boats need to stay out of the channel.
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And another thing. My primary paddling partner WORKS! That happens when most of my/your group is younger.
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Same can be said about a boat ramp with kayaks/kayakers frustrating boaters trying to launch/recover while inconsiderate paddlers clobber the boat ramp preventing others from using the limited space.
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My first world problem is a lack of wind. California has been relatively stormless this year due to La Nina and paddling on the ocean has been calm and boring all year.
Also I’d like to see some other people out in rough weather with me. Not the extreme stuff I just posted, but more moderate stuff. We have an outrigger club in the harbor and there will be awesome 5’ downwind conditions and they stay in the harbor! that’s that these boats are designed for!
Ohh, here’s one for all the early birds. I hate 8am practice! I barely get to work at 8. why do clubs insist on 7am or 8am starts? 9 or 10 would be much better for the night owls
Man, what problems we all have… 
I have pretty much given up on caring about individuals doing something “wrong” while paddling unless it is someone I know or am in some way responsible for. I certainly don’t try to “fix” their behavior and will only comment unless I see somebody doing something so risky as to be potentially lethal to themselves or dangerous to me or someone else.
But I have many pet peeves, too numerous to mention here but I will list a few.
Paddling whitewater I always hated those individuals who would peel out of an eddy directly into your path without looking upstream. Also those kayakers who tended to slash you with their paddles.
On group paddles I found those individuals who were habitually late getting to the agreed meeting spot.
Then there are those who trash the rivers and lakes, fisherman who leave piles of rotting fish heads and fish guts piled up at public access points. Groups of drunken paddlers going down the river playing boom boxes at each other and yelling back and forth not only disturbing the peace and quiet of the river but destroying any chance of spotting wildlife.
The only times I have been seriously tempted to do bodily harm to another individual on the water was when I have been deliberately “buzzed” by power craft attempting to souse my boat by throwing a wave into it, which has happened to me a number of times.
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It should be legal in all US states and Canadian provinces to take out a jetski/lake lice with a high powered weapon. Go to jail if you hit the driver or occupant, however the motor block should be open season.
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Those using a Greenland paddle are all holding it upside down. 
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I used to live on a lake in Tennessee and frequently paddled a solo canoe out on the lake. One day some young teenage punk on a jet ski, no doubt owned by Daddy, with his girlfriend on the back decided it would be good sport to repeatedly make high speed passes with a cut at the last minute intended to capsize or swamp my canoe. After a half dozen or so of these on his last attempt he cut too sharp, tipped it over and killed the engine.
By that time I was ready to brain this kid with my paddle. He saw me paddling toward him with mayhem in my eyes and he and his girlfriend rapidly swam to shore and sat huddled on the bank. I stayed out with his jet ski and watched him for a long while before I paddled off. Never saw that particular jerk out on the lake again.
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How selfish… working and making you wait.
My pet peeve used to be people that don’t paddle on a paddling outing. Long picnic lunches on group paddles or some individuals that just set their paddle down shortly after launching on a lake. If someone is injured or weak I’m happy to adjust my pace but excessive dilly-dallying for no reason used to bug me.
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I agree completely. I’ve actually brought that to the attention of some kayakers. I wasn’t clear that I was talking more about paddle craft put-ins. I’ll edit my post to clarify.
Tom
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Get your head out of your ass. You could die doing this, whoops, I hope to die out on the water; just not today.
Also, find some consideration in your miserly brain.
I make every effort to accommodate paddlers in a group. There have only been a couple of occasions when I decided to never paddle with someone again. I each instance, the individual made no effort to move faster than turtle speed, barely moving the paddle.
The older guy I would welcome back was in a borrowed barge with a lousy paddle. We even loaned him some water resistant pants. He paddled his heart out and stayed with the group and helped with the load out.
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You’re reminding me of an evening sitting around the campfire with an old paddling bud of mine. We’d been buzzed by jet skies all day and even during the calm of sunset at camp. He is less accepting of such nonsense than I, and that’s probably to his credit, but the usual ranting led to indulging in the usual dreams of retaliation. What we arrived at, after several beers worth of deep thinking, was that what we really needed to do was just rid ourselves of jet skis, without committing any violent crimes or doing anything that might hurt fishermen or other innocent bystanders; to selectively target only jet skis in a way that avoided violence… The following is the intellectual fruit of that evening - the ongoing cerebral adventures of the men of genius.
The idea we arrived at built on the recent news reports we’d seen on the wonderful advances that had been recently made in the field of ceramics. We decided what was needed was a hard ceramic sphere made to be just the density or water and of a diameter that would jam between the housing and turbine blades of a jet ski - thereby jamming and breaking the blades of jet skis but leaving ordinary fishing boats, air boats or, of course, paddlecraft unaffected. These ceramic spheres would be placed in water balloons and held at just below the water’s surface with a biodegradable line attached to a weight made of some environmentally friendly material. With these we would “mine the harbor” where jet skis accessed the river.
The patent’s yours if you want it…
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