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We are canoeists. What's a rudder? Once I went to the Pa. solo canoe rendezvous at that little Coopers "Lake" pond in PA. There were lots of canoes from vendors pulled up at pond edge. Unbeknownst to me, somebody had found a bunch of big bird feathers and gone around inserting them, upright, in...

I repaired a well-ripped, carbonlite kayak a few years back. I got it watertight but couldn't get some of the ripples out, more so on one side than the other. Paddled, it wanted to slightly pull to the right. I passed that boat on (for a rock bottom price) to a woman who has never mentioned that...

I have an Appalachian that I use when polling. It's not a solo boat, but I pole it solo.

Way back in Venice history (tenth to thirteenth centuries), they rowed with oars on each side. As the waterways became more crowded, they adopted the one-side approach to rowing, to make it easier for boats to pass in the narrow canals. Yet, the curved hull didn't come along until the sixteenth...

It’s gotten to the point where I sea kayak more than I canoe. On large, open waters such as we have in coastal Maryland, I like my sea kayak. For me, the sea kayak is much faster. Some may be able to paddle their canoe as fast as a sea kayak, but I’m not one of them. I’ve taken my Rendezvous...

Through the aughts, a pair of candle lanterns were staples on my gear list. I almost took them camping Veterans Day, as campfire substitutes during the fire ban. But I was out of replacement candles, because I never use them anymore. The lanterns have been replaced in the pack with the Luci...

A guy I know moved to South America around 2010 and I ended up with was his truck tent. The truck tent was supposed to mate to a pick up truck with a cap over the bed. With the tent set up, you could back your truck up to the tent and the tent became a living room attached to the cap. I used to...

That brings back memories! When I first started tripping the friend who organized the trip insisted we all carry maglites, so if one failed we could pirate parts from it. Remember holding a mag lite in your teeth when you needed both hands to cook or set up your tent? I suppose with LEDs the...

Winner, winner, tofu dinner! Recped nailed it--that thing is definitely an AMF Sur-Trek 8x8. rec-ped's link to to the AMF video on YouTube didn't work for me, but I found another AMF video that was just about the Sur-Trec. Nine-plus minutes of the Sur-Trek surmounting any terrain, accompanied...

Camped at Assateague over the Veterans Day weekend, and there was a fire ban in effect. Dark at 5pm, and we dined by headlamp. I brought a candle thinking we could socialize around the candle as a symbol of a fire. We made it to a little after 7 before we hit the tents. People will socialize...

Well, I know this is a canoeing forum, and this definitely has nothing to do with canoes. But I paddled at Assateague last week and came across this wrecked, some-sorta vehicle next to the ruins of the Bunting Lodge. If you know what it might have been, I'd like to know. It looks like it had a...

I just lost a Kindle two weeks ago. I was reading it while waiting for shuttle drivers to return and distinctly remember stuffing it in my dry bag, along with the big parka I had on during the wait. I opened the bag at our lunch stop. I put on the parka and returned it to the bag when we got...

There have been a few trips where I shared a tent with a friend, but mostly, I'm solo in a 2- or 3-man tent. At home, I sleep by myself, and it is uncomfortable to share a bed, with the exception of sharing with intimate partners, and there's not much of that at my age. I snore. My Neo-air is...

The boat floats along on the current, so the drift sock won’t add anything, unless there is big wind pushing the boat upstream. But most rivers don’t go straight so a headwind becomes a tailwind around the bend. Mostly, the drift won’t help and presents entanglement risks. I’m with Gamma, bad idea.

Kahel, have you thought about joining axe-aholics anonymous? I’ve never carried an ax in a canoe. Saws, pruners, loppers, yes. Of late, electric, mini chain saws. But never an ax. I did once take a splitting mail to Assateague, but only because I knew NPS had done storm cleanup and left at the...

I’m reluctant to post this because I’m no expert in hydrodynamics or canoe strokes…, but, IMO, different shaped boats react differently to leans. For example, a Mad River Explorer tends to carve the side of the hull, turning away from the side to which you lean. An Old Town Appalachian, leaned...

A friend took a trip on Georgian Bay and cut it short because the guy was totally inept. Guy couldn’t paddle and had no camping skills. I started a trip on the Machias and bailed halfway through. I was paddling with a friend I had paddled with before in less challenging waters. We planned a...

I started to make a parallel to the joke Floridians make about Georgia: why does the St. John River flow north? Because Georgia sucks. But, that would be political and we don’t need politics here. Fairfax County has a mid-river water intake just north of the golf course. I think it physically...

During my one and only trip to BWCA, we hung, and sometimes it was tough to find a way to hang 12’ up and 6’ from a trunk. You need a large limb in an area where there are no lower limbs and no other trees nearby. There were sites where we couldn’t find such a limb and resorted to rigging lines...

I too have paddled that section of the Potomac dozens of times—it’s always been fairly straightforward. So, I’m curious to know what was going on. Discounting unidentified phenomena such as alien tractor beams, seems there’s only three reasons you’d be going upstream: 1. you were paddling...