At heart I guess I'm still a whitewater kayaker. This morning I did a search of Google Video for some kayak eye candy and the only ones which caught my interest were the extreme whitewater videos. Actually I'm posting this video for my young coworker who seems to have drifted down the wrong road in life. Last week we had a chat about how he needed to find more appropriate "hobbies" and my suggestion was that he take up whitewater kayaking. The Washington, DC area happens to be a training ground for Olympic whitewater kayakers so we have some of the best instruction in the country. There is also a new man-made whitewater river/playspot opening up in McHenry, Maryland this month. This man-made river is shaped like a donut which solves one of the constraints of whitewater kayaking ... the shuttle. It also features hydraulic boulders and river features which can change the rating of the course from Class I to Class IV in less than 20 minutes. If he resists ... I might have to drag him up to class myself.

-Susanita

This weekend Michael Bradley, who is a fellow kayak blogger stopped by for a visit to say hello and see the skin-on-frame kayak that Dave is building ... which I've been blogging about. He stopped by the house as I was clearing the dust from all the construction in my kitchen. I wanted to offer this kayak traveler a place to stay but I could barely offer him a place to sit. So after a brief tour of the house and the construction zone we went to the Savory Cafe for lunch. Michael wanted me to pick a place that best described who I am and I could think of nothing better than The Savory. The Savory is where I host my weekly bridge game. It's a cozy cafe with comfortable old sofas and an occasional band. A place where the locals come to eat or chat or just hang out.

Over lunch we shared stories about how we got into kayaking and why we started blogging. For me it was a way to post my trip reports for kayak outings and the occasional kayak race. When I started the blog I never knew there were so many other kayak bloggers out there. Derrick, at KayakQuixotica.com, probably has the most extensive list of kayak blogs in the blogosphere. From that list I found out about Michael and some other of my favorite blogs ... like Peter's Paddling Blog and Douglas in Scotland. The complete list is in the sidebar. I mention the last three because they each show three different styles. I love reading Peter's blog because he's a racer and he's so hopelessly ... male. Occasionally he posts a blog or photo that normally would make me cringe ... like the blog about the topless female rowers ... but I love it because it's part of who he is. And you have to love a guy that loves women and supports women in the sport of kayaking. I love reading Douglas' blog because he such an accomplished photographer and it inspires me to look for more novel shots when I'm photographing a trip.

I added Michael to my list of favorite blogs because, like so many others in the list, he lives far away. I paddle mostly in the Chesapeake Bay area with occasional trips down to the NC coast. I love seeing photos of kayaking in other locales. And it's a way to connect with other kayakers throughout the world.

But the blog is not just about kayaking. It's also about me. And I see the blog as a way for me to keep in touch with friends and family that I don't see that often. My sister-in-law, Mari, who is more like a sister than a relation by marriage, checks in frequently and occasionally sends me an email if she thinks my blog has revealed too much. Which brings up the issue that Michael and I discussed at lunch ... what do you blog about. A blog is really a personal web log or online journal. Do you blog about your deepest thoughts? Or should it be just about kayaking? To blog just about kayaking makes your blog a sort of online kayak magazine. Most of us read kayak blogs to read about .... kayaking. But the occasional glimpse into the lives of the author is enlightening and sometimes humorous, which is why I started including some of the videos of me and my friend Shannon rolling in the pool or photos from my kitchen renovation.

I'm not sure how long I'll keep the blog going. Michael had the same question for himself. I guess I'll keep blogging as long as it's fun. But when I start kayaking to blog instead of blogging about kayaking ... or when blogging becomes more like a job than a passion, that's when I'll stop.



After lunch we drove to Annapolis to see the kayak Dave is building for me. As I posted earlier it's kind of an experimental kayak. A skin-on-frame kayak that's designed to be fast. We're not sure how fast it will be or how easy it will be to roll since the deck had to be raised so high. But it's been an interesting exercise in kayak design. Michael, who has built a few SOF kayaks himself and has an interest in the greenland kayak design, was particularly interested in details of the kayak construction. Dave has been out of town on business so the frame hasn't changed much since my last post. He took out the electrical wire temporary ribs and has been soaking the real ribs in a bucket of water all week. To see photos from Michael's visit, click here.

Dave Isbell has been building the frame of my new Skin on Frame (SOF) kayak in his basement for a few months now. Except for an occasional email asking me for another measurement I really haven't heard much about it. And I've been so busy working on the house I haven't asked. But I asked him to email me as soon as the frame started to look like a kayak.

This is best described as an experimental kayak design. He's started with the design of the Guillemot Mystery then modified the hull to work within the design constraints of a skin on frame. Marek provided an excellent summary in his kayak blog. The Mystery is designed to be built using strips of wood. A skin of frame is built by using long intact pieces of wood to build a skeleton or frame. Then the frame is covered in canvas and painted. The earliest remains of these SOF kayaks have been found in Greenland where wood is scarce. And this makes sense. A frame kayak covered in canvas (or seal skin) would use considerably less wood than a kayak built entirely of wood. The early Greenlanders worked with what they had. Although speed is always a good characteristic, most greenland kayaks weren't designed for speed. They were designed for ocean hunting of seals and they needed to be easy to roll. The waters around Greenland are deathly cold. Thus the deck was low and hugged the body tightly. Getting into a traditional greenland kayak is not unlike putting on a tight fitting pair of jeans. You wiggle in. While these design characteristics worked well for a stealthy ocean hunter they don't work well for speed.


So the first design modification we made was to raise the fore deck. The fore deck looks approximately liked the scaled drawings on the Mystery, but scaled down to fit my 5'1" frame. Because I also want to be able to roll this boat in the event of a capsize we made the deck as low as possible while still providing room for my knees. The sides taper down and the idea is that I will pad out the sides so that I can roll the boat with my knees pressed against the sides. The back deck was designed to be flat which will also make the boat easier to roll.

The beam of the boat is a maximum 18 inches, although we're expecting the waterline beam to be around 14-15 inches. The shape of the kayak is Swede-form, which means that the maximum breadth of the kayak is aft of the cockpit. Also the bow of the kayak tapers down sharply from the cockpit to allow the paddle an entry point close to the center of the boat. In working through the design of the boat with Dave I learned a lot about the tradeoffs one has to make when designing a boat. Greenland style boats have lots of "rocker". Rocker refers to how the keel of the boat sweeps up at the bow and stern. A boat with a high amount of rocker is easy to turn and maneuver. But it slows the boat down. For maximum speed you want a long waterline. So Dave designed the boat to have almost no rocker. Because of the flexibility in the wood which provides the framework for the kayak, we think there will be some rocker introduced by the weight of the kayaker.

Everything is a tradeoff. I'm expecting that my Huki S1-A surfski will still be faster than this SOF kayak but taking the surfski out in open water still scares me. Knowing that I can roll this boat if I have to will give me incredible peace of mind. To see more pics, click here.

-Susanita

If I had lived in the house for a long time I might have felt a tinge of sadness as they tore away the old cabinets and tore out the gold appliances ... but I haven't and I didn't. This is what was left of my kitchen after Tom and his crew went to work early Monday morning. I was surprised how fast the first day went. That afternoon the new cabinets were delivered and by Wednesday they had most of the new cabinets in place.



I love it! Today Tom installed my Advantium Speed Oven. I don't cook alot but I'm really excited about this oven. Because ... it cooks just like a regular oven ... only faster. A lot faster. I browsed through the cookbook which came with it this morning and the average cooking time seemed to be around 15 minutes. It cooks the outside of the food using regular convection cooking and it cooks the inside of the food using microwaves. And it browns and broils and toasts and bakes and roasts ... but it does everything fast.

I also had a visit from the guy from Counter Intelligence to get a measurement for the granite countertops. He came equipped with some high tech lasers for measuring the cabinets and counter space. It's been very educational watching these guys work. But I'll be really glad when it's all over and I can get back to my regular life ... cooking fast and kayaking fast.

Dave Isbell emailed yesterday that the SOF racing kayak he's building me is starting to actually look like a kayak. So I'm going to try and run by his place in Annapolis this weekend and get some pictures. I just have to wait for the snow and sleeting to stop. But hopefully I'll have photos up on the blog by Sunday night.

-Susanita

This is about as close as I got to the water on Saturday. I worked hard all week painting the last of the big walls with the 14 foot ceilings so I could join the group going out Saturday to paddle around Chester River and Eastern Neck Island. I was successful in getting the walls painted but in the process injured my shoulder. No kayaking for me until it heals. So I joined a Sierra Club hike around LIberty Reservoir ... which looked like a great place to paddle some day although I couldn't tell if it was open to kayakers.



Most of the trail was covered with snow and ice. Those who came prepared with walking sticks were much more stable, but I had several almost falls on the ice. Several people weren't so lucky and there was probably more than one bruised tailbone by the end of the hike. The trail meandered around the reservoir, in and out of the forest. Several small streams feed into the reservoir which pass through the trail and the hike was advertised on the Sierra club list as having several stream crossing. Not sure what kind of streams we would be crossing I emailed James, the trip leader, before the trip for clarification. All he said was ... your feet could get wet and you may want to remove your shoes.



Given the snow and ice I estimated the stream water to be maybe 45 degrees. So I opted to do the stream crossing with my boots on. This worked out well until we got to the last stream. There was a large log across the stream but one of the other hikers volunteered that it could be decaying. The stream was running high, over a foot deep. So the choices narrowed down to slithering across the log and perhaps falling in the stream if the log broke or running across the water ... I opted to run as did most people. And got soaked in the process. It was a squishy walk back. Fortunately I'm used to being wet so it didn't bother me. But I made a mental note to pack water shoes next time and keep the boots dry. To see the complete photo album, click here.

-Susanita