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Call Sandy at Lincoln Canoe in Freeport ME

207-865-0455

Crazy Creek Chairs are useful in this situation.

Your kids are going to grow and your seven year old already should be paddling. The four year isnt far behind. If they are showing an interest in paddling be prepared to let them do so.

My grandson is five and this summer he got his own canoe. He was my tandem partner last year at four (ballasted the bow for sure!) and now he is double blading his solo. Next weekend we are working with a single blade.

Since five year olds have the attention span of a fly, this will take some time.

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What maps are you using?

We took the time to piece together paper topos like a TP roll and wound up simply navigating by Haps book..Everything went downstream.

But the topos were necessary for backup

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I never ever wear open toed sandals..

A cut toe can be more than a nuisance.

Keen Sandals are OK, have a fair amount of support but still gravel comes in.. I wore them for two weeks in Wabakimi. Real annoyance on beaches though as in Florida.

Salomon Techphibians are OK but have a proprietary sole that is slippier than Merrell Waterpros, which have a vibram sole. Neither shoe is beefy enough for more than two months tripping.

So I go through a pair of water shoes a year and found that Crocs, those ugly things from China are really good camp shoes. They offer a lot of support if you buy them a size down.

I endure wet feet all day. I have to unload the boat in the water and sometimes there is no place to change. I used to wear hiking boots. I found that with the thick soles I had no feedback from the ground and sank or turned ankles more often than with a thinner soled shoe. I also tripped over my own feet more often. I dont wear hiking boots anymore.

If you dry your feet immediately on arrival at camp and use talcum powder, your skin will not break down.

I dont wear boots as I have to kneel in my boats. Boots are incredibly uncomfortable kneeling and lead to cramps.. My partner wore Chotas (which I do have for my pack boat) and got such bad cramps he could not pay attention to paddling last week on a whitewater run.

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The link to the Traditional 2 Cooke Custom Sewing Pack does not work..also the dimensions for the 2 are correct but the volume given is for the 4.

here is a link to the CCS page that shows the 2, 3 , 3 1/2 and 4. Dan has a bunch of sizes.
http://www.cookecustomsewing.com/traditional.htm

I found some of his others on envelope packs. I have seen all the sizes. All stand up so all should be under traditional

Thats a pile of work you did!

Let me give you more: Under Dry Bags, Outdoor Research, Seattle Sports and (watch out for this one) Sea to Summit (they have coated compression, sil nylon etc. In my local outdoor store there are over three dozen different dry bags by them)

When you get to drybags, you might want to break them out by usage. The PVC ones can be used externally. Some of the coated ones are designed to slide into a pack more easily (the PVC ones are a real pain to compress). Some of the dry bags by Seattle Sports and OR are compression dry bags.

Hmmm

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You need to prepare for the dumping. A canoeist with sea experience is always preparing for a dumping at any time.

If your little voice tells you this is not a good idea, listen to it.

I am not 100 percent confident that I can paddle flat water without dumping. It can happen at any time from a simple head turn to anything throwing you off balance. So I am always ready for one.

Lake Superior is not the easiest lake…it is the most ocean like of the Great Lakes. It has longer period swells that can be quite high. Erie with its shallower bathymetry will chop up faster with lower winds. The shallowness causes the waves to break, however the period of the waves is quicker.

Yes I have paddled Superior(Canadian side only), and Huron and Ontario but mostly the Atlantic Ocean..in open canoe.. I am going solo on the Atlantic this fall so the canoe is now going to have a full spray deck and me in the drysuit.

Superior does have warm spots but a thermocline about three feet down. The beaches can have decent swimming.

Evenings never worked for me on Superior. It has a seiche (like water sloshing in a bathtub) and when the winds died down the waves did not till after dark. Paddling before sunrise to about noon worked just fine.

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Eventually you will get used to standing and need not wear a helmet;)

And you will get used to kneeling for longer and longer periods.

Keep messing around with the boat. Its always fun to listen to bystanders who have no clue what you are doing.

I think Canadians spend the winter watching TV kneeling.

You can always make a mini saddle to take pressure off your knees. Make sure you have a comfy pad. That really helps.

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For summer touring I like my cotton Tilley..can dunk it and keep cool, can apply repellent to the hatband and dont have to put it on me.

For whitewater or winter its a skullcap made out of neoprene with a windblock layer. It fits under a helmet or a wool hat.

For Louisiana and hot weather a wide brimmed straw hat with lots of ventilation

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I haven’t met a single canoe guru who wasn’t a great social contact over a good meal or a brew or two..some of them can surprise you with their capacity!

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Paddle length depends on your height and the width of the gunwales and your seating position (height above the water). 280s tend to be long unless you are sitting in the bottom of a historical flared chine boat which has extra width.

I dont know what you need. Experiment with a piece of lumber to find out the right length.

I dont like We-no-nah canoes. Not me and not that Heron..mine is a Swift from the performance solo era of the early 90’s and late 80’s. Fast. few were built, most paddlers couldn’t stay in them..particularly seated in empty boat.

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or you could simply drive over to Rochester NY for pickup!There are Swift dealers in the US but only in the NE..still if you are in the area.

The US dollar last I saw was worth less than the loonie. Bargain here.

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I want to see that 36 cm Dumoine..you really should keep it out of the high heat cycle in the dryer.

Wetness from a double blade sometimes comes from too high a paddle angle. The db stroke is low and short, short short, not going in back of the hip.

I paddle a solo boat..either a Heron or Merlin II usually and the length of the blade and shaft together for the Bending Branches paddle is 240 cm.. I think that 280 is going to tend to give you a very sweepy stroke making you yaw unless you finesse the stroke down to a power phase of less than a foot or so.

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@Jerry R. 576 wrote:

OBA,

Cliff has some great ideas and has a ton of experience, so go ahead and try them out and tweak as you need to fit your situation. I personally can’t stand Cliff, but he is a knowledgeable camper and canoeist.

J

like the time he told an audience of us that no seeum netting was not necessary and too hot so we should seek mosquito netting with a larger diameter hole.. per C no seeums are rare.

150 of us were rolling in the aisles.:D:D He hasnt paddled in Maine where the presentation was. He has not yet met legions of no seeums that are the worst in New Brunswick even over Maine where they just singe you. In NB they send you screaming to the smoky fire. I guess the Midwest isnt cursed with them nor the Arctic.

So take some of his ideas..many are sound and think about the process behind the advice…and then think about if it will work for you.

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we have some canoeing wine lovin friends. They are great paddlers who still take class though they are pushing the limits of canoe balance(both are way cantilevered out)

Once, in class, they upset the boat. Now this was the funniest thing since Peg HATES to get her feet wet. Both of them were all wet. During the retreival of their boat, it was upside down over the rescuing boat momentarily..someone procured their wine basket and table cloth and draped the cloth over the overturned boat and put the basket on and then both were helped into the rescue boat where , dripping wet, they could gaze romantically at each other over wine.

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From OBA:just got our second warning for improper canoe storage from our community manager…this is gonna get good

What exactly is improper canoe storage? And what is a community manager? Is that the dictator that says you shall not dry your laundry outside?

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O Rick, Rick, M deserves a portable table with a vase of flowers..(make a little hole in the table so the vase doesnt tip) and wine glasses (you can get nice shaped plastic goblets) and the wine.

Plus the wicker picnic basket for the accoutrements( such as the cork remover and the cheese and crackers)…and the portable phonograph..

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