Simon Willis, a journalist and film maker, and Gordon Brown, a world-class BCU 5 Star sea kayaking coach, have teamed up to make Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown Volume 2, the Rescues. This DVD, like Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown Volume 1, combines a sea kayaking journey to a stunning destination with instructional components. The [...]
Fuselage Frame Boats: A guide to building skin kayaks and canoes documents S. Jeff Horton’s, Kudzu Craft, method of building plywood-framed skin-on-frame kayaks in a similar method to those developed by Tom Yost of Yostwerks. The idea is to connect a series of frames with stringers to make the basic shape of the kayak or [...]
If you visit PaddlingLight often, you might have noticed the new advertisement in the sidebar that proclaims “Recovery Can Be Life’s Greatest Adventure.” You might have also been attracted to picture of a book cover with a man in a kayak under a waterfall who’s grinning a wide grin. If you haven’t, just look at [...]
If you want to build a kayak or canoe from the free plans found on PaddlingLight, you should buy a couple of canoe or kayak building books. Most use different methods, which you can combine to make your boat uniquely your’s. There are lots of books out there to cover in a review, so I’m [...]
Back in April, Kayalu sent me a Kayacam camera mount to test out on my kayak. I decided to give it a go on a calm day (check out the video below). The Kayacam mount attaches to your kayak or canoe by hooking into an existing deck fitting with a stainless steel clip. The stainless [...]
There’s a new player in town for Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness maps, and it’s National Geographic’s excellent Trails Illustrated Maps. The current players in the BWCA map field include McKenzie Maps, Fisher Maps, and Voyageur Maps. Each of the current vendors follows the philosophy that more detail is better. To cover the entire BWCA, [...]
Canoeist and kayakers should start off the new year and a new decade by resolving to read a few books. In the past I’ve done round-up reviews of boat building books and paddling books, but it’s about time for a new round-up. These 10 stand out as the paddling books you should read in 2010. [...]
J.J. Kelley and Josh Thomas built a couple of plywood kayaks. Then they paddled from Alaska to Seattle via the Inside Passage in the plywood kayaks that they built. During the trip, they filmed everything. After the trip, they whittled all the footage down to an 80-minute movie. Everyone from Paddler Magazine to Outside Online [...]
These lightweight high quality notebooks and cahiers are about the best that money can buy and perfect for keeping a journal on while on a trip.
Once on a trip, I remarked that I wish I had a MP3 player, and the person I was with said, “Why? Do you get lonely?” While I suppose that, someone could look at music as a relief from loneliness, but for me I like being alone. For me, music has always done two things: [...]
Warren, Graham and Gidmark, David, Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide To Making Your Own. New York, Firefly Books, 2001. This bible of paddle making begins with a quick discussion on the history of paddles, but shortly gets to the point of teaching you how to make a canoe paddle. It covers making a paddle from [...]
Make Your Own Inuksuk by Mary Wallace reviewed.
Concise reviews of 19, count them, 19 boat building books. This list will get you started building boats of your own. It’s easy just check out my building log for my latest kayak.
Yep, I’m a little passionate about music. I love to listen to it even when I’m miles from home in the middle of nowhere, and here are some of my favorite albums. If you only buy one album this year, make it one off of this list and you won’t be disappointed.
5 Canoe and Kayak Books to Read in 2012
It’s winter in the northern hemisphere and for those of us in the frozen tundras, that means that we have a few choices on what to do this time of year. To get a paddling fix, we can either winter kayak, head to the pool like in the above image or read a book. Included here are [...]