Some New Year’s Resolutions

Every year it seems that people are making their newest New Year’s resolutions within a day or two after the big year ending celebration of December 31st. And, of course, it seems that if someone has made a New Year’s resolution, then they want you to share yours, and every year, when asked, I say I don’t have any, because I often wait for a while to see if I want to make any. It turns January into a month of reflection on the last year, and lets it sink in. I often ask myself the question: What did I accomplish? What did I want to do and didn’t? And with these questions in mind, I try and come up with a few goals for the next year. Here are some of my paddling goals for 2005:

1. Paddle my Bell Wildfire more often. This is my favorite solo canoe, and in 2004, it took a back seat to my Bell Magic and my homemade Stitch and Glue and my homemade Skin-On-Frame kayaks. I plan to do this by paddling the Brule River down to Lake Superior from the Boundary Waters.
2. Get a bomber Eskimo roll. Right now, I’m a one sided roller, and I can get it almost all the time on that side, but on the other, I’m a no go, so by the end of this year, I plan to be able to roll all the time on both sides in any condition.
3. Build a new kayak. I really like my two kayaks, but I want something that tracks better and is faster than my two. I’ve been working on design for a while now and have it all ready to build, but I want to sell my S&G Fool’s Gold before I build a new craft. And before I start, I want to really decide on whether or not I want to do my own design again. I’ve been looking at some baidarka designs and a kayak on One Ocean’s website.
4. Sell my Fool’s Gold S&G homemade kayak. I would like to get $400 out of it. I managed to downsize my fleet last year by giving one kayak to my brother and conned my parents into keeping a canoe in Iowa for my nieces to paddle. Too many boats, not enough time.
5. Take a trip in the Boundary Waters right after the ice starts to break-up.
6. Canoe an artic river (maybe the Thelon) or spend a good amount of time on whitewater in the southeast. If I can get a crew together for a three-boat trip on the Thelon for three weeks, this would be ideal. If I can’t get the people for the trip, then I’d like to paddle much much more whitewater, and maybe even taking a lesson from the NOC, and I’ll spend two to three weeks down there.

Well, those are my New Year’s resolutions for you to read about. I urge you to come up with your own tick list for paddling in 2005, and if you really want to put your neck out, I’d be glad to post yours online, so there would be a little pressure to accomplish them. Happy New Year.