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Gerber River Shorty, mounted on the front of my PFD, had a sheath to which the knife snapped into. The knife dropped out somewhere and was lost. Somebody else had a similar drop-out while they were carrying around a log jam on the Mullica River. I found it and snapped it into the vacant sheath...

My wallet and a video camera were secured in a pocket of a small back pack, along with a few other small items. The backpack was tied to a thwart of my buddy’s Grumman as we descended a rapid on the East Outlet. We were ejected when the non-floating painter on the canoe engaged the river bottom...

This post might be a longer read than it is worth. But, now that I wrote it... Steve and I paddle the same, 7-mile stretch of the Patuxent at least 20 times a year. The stretch, Bowie to Queen Anne, is a muddy flatwater with 1-2mph current, is about 15-30 yards wide, and has plenty of timber to...

Lots of good solutions offered above, but 2x4s are best in my opinion. I don’t often carry two canoes. In the past, I’ve attached the 2x4s to the bars with hose clamps. Very solid, and 2x4s are sort of magically sticky to ropes, and I’d think straps, although I’m a rope guy so just speculating...

Use a grilling basket. The one that came with our rotisserie machine weighs less than a pound. But I’d go with something heavier, and maybe you’d want one with a handle, which adds a pound or more. With a larger and heavier basket, you could use the basket for a fire grate when cooking other...

No cooler. I don’t take fresh meat or dairy, I don’t like ice water, and good beer is pleasing at ambient temperature. It surprised me that even Lone Star beer tasted good at the end of a hot day on the Rio Grand. In the desert we could get the beer to ~60F by wrapping them in a wet towel. A...

I haven’t done many trips with portages. In the BWCA, I didn’t carry a table. I was sitting on the ground or maybe a log, so cooking on the ground or a rock worked fine. If there are no or few carries, I bring a roll-top table and a folding chair. And beer! One of the advantages of portage...

Serge, welcome to the site. Hope you grow to love canoeing as much as most of us on this forum. Canoeing is fun and good for the spirit. I have some advice on your canoe, but will start with a story. When I started to learn canoeing, I had an OT Camper canoe. The Camper had a very flat bottom...

Snapper's mention of hiking reminded me of a mesmerizing scene on Mt. Osceola, NH, a 4300' peak in the Whites. It was 2013 and we'd hiked up to spend the night. I packed Maryland micro-brew to share and we set ourselves up on the rocky outcroppings at the peak to watch the daylight fade. It had...

Watching an enormous bird flock had me mesmerized in 2017. I couldn’t turn away. Lake paddling in the Adirondaks in the fall did it, too. It was a perfectly still day and there were no other boats on the lake, so there was a perfect, mirror reflection of the colorful trees lining the lake...

Patience. It’s hard, but if you rush things, you risk re-injury, and that would be a setback which keeps you off the water even longer. Start slow and easy and gradually build from there. I know it’s hard because you may feel you can go more, but you gotta gradually recover to reach your new...

I was about to leave a rest stop in Southern Maryland when an elderly couple pulled in next to me. The old woman on the passenger side must have been 80+ and slowly began to get out, and I could tell it was taking a bit to get her old bones moving. As she got out, her eyes wandered from me to...

Rather than break up the bulkhead, I suggest you consider adding a concrete skid plate on the bow. Concrete is a versatile material. There’s an annual concrete canoe race held among college engineering teams. Your concrete skid plates will add ballast and hull protection at the same time, while...

If you get a hand pump, also get some tubing to extend the nozzle a foot or so. Otherwise, it’s difficult to direct the outflow of the pump over the gunwales. I really liked having a bilge pump in my sea kayak. The hand pump takes a lot of work to empty the cockpit. My Sostice has a tight...

I mounted a pair of pumps in my Encore, right behind the pedestal. They weren’t permanently mounted, but I never removed them. The pumps were connected to tubes that were connected to the thru-hull discharge fittings on either side of the hull, so the setup was semi-permanent. And besides, I...

My Kevlar Rendezvous makes horrible noises when grinding over rocks. There have been times when I was out paddling and there really wasn’t enough water in the river, and I spent a lot of time wincing as the boat skidded over rock and gravel beds. I remember thinking I was ruining the boat. But...

If you keep ending up on the white water runs, I gotta question how hard you are looking for flat water. There is more flat water on the Potomac than ww. Start at Riley's lock and paddling upstream, there's at least 10 miles of flat water. Put in at Fletchers, its hundreds of miles of flat water...

If I’m paddling a rapid with a newb, they’re in the stern and I’m in the bow. In the bow, I can pick the slot and get the bow there. All the stern has to do is follow. If the bow doesn’t get where you need to be, the stern won’t get there either. communication: first, there’s lots of noise in...

My buddy wanted to canoe camp Maine’s St. John river, which includes rapids, so we thought I should learn whitewater. In ‘99 I took beginning whitewater (tandem) with the Canoe Cruisers, and began paddling every weekend with a group of open boaters, informally led by guidebook author Roger...

Bears, sharks, snakes, hippopotamus. All are animals you could possibly encounter while canoeing or camping. If you do encounter them, there's a small chance the animal will attack you. If attacked, you could be injured or killed. Ticks on the other hand, if you are in their range, you WILL...