PaddlingLight.com

Every spring as the lakes melt and people head out onto lakes, there are accidents involving cold water paddling. Many of the fatalities involve paddlers not wearing life jackets or using immersion gear, such as wetsuits or drysuits. Each spring there also seems to be discussion about whether or not you should wear a life jacket under a coat or under clothing. Because removing a life jacket is more difficult than putting a coat over the jacket, some paddlers wear their coats over their life jackets. That’s not the correct way to use a life jacket. To get a direct answer to the question, I reached out to the United…

I’ve recently had the opportunity to do an Over Easy Breakfast Bars Review [Buy the bars here] with several boxes of bars sent by the company. The company had no expectation of a review, and they didn’t ask for anything in exchange for this review. But, they gave me the bars for free. I hadn’t heard of Over Easy before, and if you haven’t, I wouldn’t be surprised. It seems to be a small company devoted completely to producing breakfast bars. Real Food Ingredients Over Easy breakfast bars come in four flavors: Peanut Butter, Apple Cinnamon, Banana Nut, and Vanilla Matcha. I tried the first three, which were the original…

This weekend is virtual Canoecopia. Usually, this in-person event is the largest consumer paddlesports event in the world. Each March people from all over the world descend on Madison, WI for a weekend of vendors, gear and speakers. There are usually 6 to 10 speakers speaking each hour of the weekend. It’s a wild event. This year, due to the pandemic, the event is going online using the Whova application and Zoom. Many presentations are pre-recorded, but some speakers will be presenting live. I’ll be one of the live presenters given a sweet (the best, really, I’m not kidding. Okay, I’m kidding a little) presentation on Canoe and Kayak Photography…

Recently, I took Sans Meal Bar up on an offer to pay $3 in shipping and get two of their meal bars for free. I figured what-the-heck because I’ve been looking for a bar that could be a meal. If it was good, it might work on some of my paddling trips as a good replacement for crackers, cheese and summer sausage or crackers and peanut butter and jelly or wraps and tuna. While, I do like variety on a trip, it wouldn’t bother me to not have that variety for simplicity. Also, it’s seemed like a good and inexpensive way to add a Sans Meal Bar review to PaddlingLight.…

This is an annual housekeeping post to inform loyal readers, subscribers and readers who get notifications about the 2021 plan for PaddlingLight. First, I’m personally embarking what I’m calling the year of lightness. Each day, I’m getting rid of something. It’s been really fun for the last couple of weeks finding and either selling, donating or throwing an item a day. While not really part of that (but inspired by it), I’ve deleted PaddlinghLight’s social media pages. I looked at the traffic coming to this website from the social media accounts and decided it wasn’t worth trying to maintain or develop the social media pages. The biggest downside to doing…

I received your blog post about the Unalaskan kayak. In 2000, I looked for a kayak design, which was possible to build with strips and suitable for a tour on the coast of Brittany (France). I knew there were sometimes rough conditions from day tours before. I wanted a kayak design that could handle those conditions. I found the kayak I wanted drawn as figure 178 in Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America, and I decided to draw it the old fashion way on paper. But the bow and stern seemed to be difficult to build with strips, therefore I changed it a little. I built the stern…

I often get asked about what photography gear I bring to the Boundary Waters or on paddling trips. To answer that question, I’ve created a new video. The video covers all the gear that I usually bring on a canoe trip. It also shows how I pack that gear into one bag. If you like photography content, consider subscribing to my YouTube channel.