Lots of places

Lots of ways

For those of you who don't paddle in winter (and why not?), this is the beggining of the so-called season. The air gets warmer (gradually) and the water gets warmer (much more slowly), and dusty kayaks emerge from garages to be placed on cars to be driven somewhere to be put in the water (with apologies for the run on sentence).

Although I am on the water year round, I've set myself a fine schedule to keep myself busy this "season". This weekend will be paddle fest at Laacke & Joy here in Milwaukee. I will be doing a traditional paddling presentation (on land. Who wants to roll in the Milwaukee River?) and helping with some "trips". Later this summer, I go on the road.

I will be at the Door County Symposium (sponsored by Rutabaga in Madison) where I will do whatever Nancy tells me to do. Right from there, I head up to Picture Rock National Seashore (Upper Pennisula of Michigan) to look around. At the end of that week I will be teaching at Grand Marais.

In August, it is across the pond to Northern Michigan for the QAJAQ USA camp where us wannabe Inuits spend an entire weekend rolling our boats. The instruction is excellent. Even some of the participants, like AP, are great teachers and have helped me a great deal.

In between I will be paddling Lake Michigan, sometimes from South Shore in Milwaukee (a group goes out 9 am CDT each Sunday) or, if the surf is up, off of Kohler Andre State Park (south of Sheboygan). Finally, there will be saturdays at Lake Nemahbin (I-94 near Delafield) to practice strokes, rolls and rescues and to just cruise around. Finally, there will an occasional paddle on the Milwaukee River, maybe out of Mequon where there is now a pair of bald eagles.

I usually paddle an NDK Romany on the lake, an Arctic Tern (wooden stitch and glue boat I made) and, for fun, the skin frame I made last year (the topic of a future blog).

See you on the water?

DS