Fellow level 4 kayak instructor Bill Merrick and I spent two days this week at Gardner Dam Boy Scout Camp helping six kayakers attain their ACA level 1 kayak instructor certification. The candidates are preparing for their summer jobs as guides for kayak camping trips in the Apostle Islands and […]
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Another Go at the Peshtigo
If you love rivers you need to experience the Peshtigo. My first experience was some 10 years ago in a two-person raft my wife and I rented at Kosir’s Rapid Rafts, the oldest whitewater outfitter in Wisconsin. We returned to the Peshtigo this past Saturday for another go — Mary […]
Valet Diving on Little Cayman
To get away from it all you COULD travel farther from home than Little Cayman Island but you would be hard-pressed to find a more isolated vacation spot. At 10 miles long by one mile wide and with a resident population of 170, Little Cayman is tiny. It’s not only […]
Lester River Race
For the past three years I’ve wanted to be in Duluth, MN during the annual whitewater race on the Lester River. I’ve seen photos and videos of expert kayakers negotiating the class IV and V features of this challenging river, and it looked like there were good observation points for […]
Prairie Paddling: Whitewater Comes to Iowa
When it comes to having an eye on the future, three towns in Iowa have their stuff together. Charles City, Manchester and Elkader each have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to create whitewater parks. For someone who spent his first 30 years in Iowa, this is an amazing development […]
Bald Eagles: Convocation at the top of the food chain
Last weekend as I looked out our living room window overlooking Green Bay, I saw a pair of bald eagles perched on the ice near the open water. I assumed they were hunting fish. But through binoculars I could see one of them had captured a Bufflehead duck. Bald eagles […]
Indoor Kayak Training
Now that rivers are icing up in the Upper Midwest, it may finally be time to declare the end of the 2015 late-fall, early-winter whitewater paddling season. Some hardy sea kayakers will still be at it wherever they can find open water. While most kayakers wait for warmer weather, pool […]
That time our dive boat sank
Whenever two or more scuba divers gather in one place, you’re likely to hear amazing tales of underwater adventure. Most of them are true, mostly. When it’s my turn to tell a dive story, mine starts like this: “Well there was that time our dive boat sank.” Before I tell […]
Birth of a Creek
We were in Orange County, California this past weekend with a couple of free hours; time enough for a morning hike. A Google search of nearby trails led us to Santiago Oaks Regional Park, a 1,269-acre oasis of semi-wilderness in the midst of SoCal’s urban sprawl. This secluded refuge offers […]
A different view of surf
A 16-year-old freelance photographer from Australia is getting some remarkable results because of his experimentation with artificial lighting in surf.