Adventures in Paddling the Pacific Northwest

Okay… it might be a bit much to think that spending 30 minutes showing 120 kindergarten students two kayaks and the gear that goes with them will change their lives but I’d like to think that one or two of them might grow up to be paddlers. Or even a couple of their teachers. For the

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Kayak

3rd year in a row I drove to Royal City, Washington (where Sue and I used to own a 125 acre farm/orchard), garbed up in a drysuit, PFD, bootees and sprayskirt, and gave a short talk to the 6 kindergarten classes at Red Rock Elementary.

This year I took the F-1, an example of an Inuit (Greenland) kayak and the Mariner II, an example of a very modern, very fast sea kayak. One is a skin-on-frame with the only modern components being the skin (ballistic nylon) and the two-part polyurethane that makes it water-proof. The other is a state-of-the-art (2007) slender (21.5 inches), long (17′11″) kayak (rated as a “very fast kayak” by at least one rowing society in Puget Sound) made from Kevlar. Continue reading Igniting a Spark

Banks Lake is the main reservoir feeding the vast irrigation system of the Quincy Irrigation District in central Washington State. Grand Coulee Dam was constructed to provide the electric power needed to pump water from the Columbia River (called Lake

Steamboat Rock from State Route 155

Roosevelt behind the dam) up through huge pipes into Banks Lake. From there gravity (assisted by some strategically located pumps) funnels the water to thousands of farms along I-90. Moses Lake itself is part of the reservoir system that includes the Potholes Reservoir and Billy Clapp Lake; both of which provide interesting and mostly rain-free paddling.

Steamboat Rock State Park nestles against a basalt monolith that rises out of the waters of Banks Lake just 7 miles south of the town of Grand Coulee and 25 miles north of tiny Coulee City at the southern end of the lake. Adjacent to the park is the Eagle Pass area that is a jumble of granite rock islets that make perfect flat water paddling. Continue reading Paddling Eagle Pass – Banks Lake

We have been having some Internet connection problems at our house and I have not yet isolated the problem between the Qwest ADSL line or the ADSL modem. Still working on it. However that doesn’t mean we have not been paddling.

Pam brought her Cape Falcon Kayak F-1 over from the Seattle area over the weekend so that Sue and Hailey could try it out. Sue likes my F-1 but, then, so do I. Pam likes her

Pam's F-1 before covering... 2 sizes smaller than mine

F-1 but she prefers her longer fiberglass kayaks (and is trying to sell off a few of her spare boats in order to buy something new). I generally paddle the Mariner Express or the Mariner II when I’m out paddling any distance but if I’m just dinking around it will be the F-1 every time.

So we took the two F-1 kayaks over to Kristy and Micheal’s house. Kristy is our daughter (Sue and I) she lives on a more protected lagoon connected to the main lake by canals with cool little bridges to paddle under and lots of twists and turns. Her house is 3.5 statute miles from our house and it’s pretty handy to be able to paddle between them. Continue reading Playing Catchup

After several attempts we have finally accomplished our maiden voyage as a kayak mothership by voyaging from Oak Harbor Marina to the San Juan Islands and launching, paddling, and retrieving a kayak while at anchor and cooking, eating, sleeping and living independently on the boat for several days at a time. Part of the challenge is the age of the boat (1972) and the need to spend so much time restoring the boat so it’s safe for use. If you’ve been following these posts you’re aware of the major issue (fuel starvation). We discovered another issue over the course of this trip.

Overall the trip was wonderful. We revisited some places we had not seen in thirty

Mothership at James Island with F-1 aboard

years and spent time in an anchorage new to us but convenient to some of the best paddling in the islands. Since I’m in my sixties one of the important aspects is whether I can handle a kayak on board keeping in mind that one does not have the luxury of standing on a dock while anchored in a remote cove. The weight of a skin-on-frame (SOF) kayak makes this much easier. Continue reading San Juan Islands – July 2009

Matt Broze of Mariner Kayaks (they designed and built the Coaster) sent me this photograph of a powerboat that strayed just a tad too close to the edge of the channel. It either means that the nav aids are there to help us kayakers or it means that we should not depend on being just outside the channels to remain safe from powerboats. The boat’s name is reportedly being changed to, “Permanent Insanity”.

Just because you're at the edge of the channel doesn't mean you're safe from powerboats.

The fuel uptake issue has been a major hurdle in preparing the Muthah-Ship for safe and reliable operation. During our first on-the-water operation of the Carver we could not get over 2500RPM which meant that the boat could not get onto a plane and reach design speeds of 15 to 20 kts. Although we intend to operate the boat at speeds of 6 to 7 knots 90% of the time, one of the major advantages of a planing hull is the ability to move the boat and its occupants to safety quickly if there is a need. Installation of a 12vdc priming pump helped to get the boat to 2500RPM and onto a plane at speeds of about 14kts but there were still significant symptoms of fuel starvation at 3,000 RPM and above. Continue reading Odds and Ends

The photo you see here is of a catamaran sailing back and forth in the entrance channel to Oak Harbor, Washington. I was outbound in the Muthah-Ship underway at 7kts in fine weather and headed for the ebb-to-flood slack water at Deception Pass some 14 miles

Cat on Edge - Oak Harbor, Washington

away. What could ruin this beuatiful day? Unfortunately in eight hours I would be limping back into this channel  on the Mercury 9.9hp 4-stroke outboard Sue and I installed two weeks ago. A good $1,000 investment (including the mount) I’d say.

It was supposed to have been the very first weekend for using the muthah-ship the way I had intended; as a vehicle for carrying me and my kayak to adventure. The kayak was aboard and it was an adventure all right, but not the way I had envisioned it. Continue reading The Shakedown Cruise

When my muthah-ship, a 1972 Carver 2565 Santa Cruz, is finished in the Spring of 2010 it will be the best equipped 25-foot, 37-year old cabin cruiser in Puget Sound and possibly all of North America. And it will be done for a total cost of about US$11,000

The Best Equipped 37-year old Cabin Cruiser in the PNW

(US)! Now eleven grand may sound like a lot of money but it’s less than one-tenth of a new boat which would come with far less equipment and almost none of the teak and mahogany that are trademarks of older boats (with fiberglass hulls). It is also about the cost of three new high-quality sea kayaks (or two in kevlar!) or a couple of Feathercraft folding kayaks. Continue reading The Best Equipped 25-foot, 37-year old Cabin Cruiser in North America

My wife, Susan, is trying to sell her collection of bee-keeping (apiary) equipment and the husband of one of her farmer’s market friends arrived this afternoon to take a look at the collection with his two children. While we waited for Sue to arrive the kids played with the dogs, went down onto the dock, dangled their tootsies in the water and generally killed time while he and I chatted.

The apiary equipment is located in two places. In what’s left of the old shop (the one that burned up and was subsequently torn down (you can see that shop in the background of one of the muthah-ship articles) and in the rental storage cubicles we acquired right after the fire. I gave the kids an option to stay here and I’d put them into a kayak. They both jumped at the chance but the girl was less than enthusastic about getting into a kayak. So Sue and their dad drove off and I carried the F-1 down to the dock where the kids waited. Continue reading Kids will be Kids

While a mothership is extremely advantageous for exploring an area by kayak,  it is less than satisfactory if you want to make a weekend trip to a nearby lake but don’t wish to sleep in a tent. Remember that I’m an old guy and interested in exploring but not all that interested (any more) in roughing it. Sue and I, on a trip to Pullman to take our old doggie friend, Maxinne, to the vet school clinic at WSU, found a craigslist ad while surfing around on an iphone.

The ad was for a 21-foot Streamline Princess RV trailer made in 1972 and the photos

1972 Streamline Princess

and description made it sound interesting. We had been kicking around the idea of using a pickup truck camper on our 1994 Dodge 3/4 ton. The truck has a 5-speed manual transmission and the Cummins diesel engine so it will pretty much tow anything but Sue has a Kia Sorento SUV which is only rated for 5,000 lbs. However her SUV has 4wd while the pickup – a relic of our farming days – is not. Which would  make cross country ski trips difficult with a camper and a 2wd truck but not so bad with a small aluminum trailer and a 4wd SUV. Continue reading A Slight Digression