Hi there! Thanks for visiting my website. I'm Nena (Nay-nuh), and I am completely in love with kayaking.

A bit of history...

If you had asked me when I was 8-years-old, I would have told you I would never go kayaking again. At 14, I owned Big Purple (the same color as everything else I was buying at the time) and worked as a cashier at BayCreek Paddling Center. I spent nine incredible summers working and paddling with customers and fellow employees who shared the same passion for kayaking as me. The most addicting aspect of kayaking is the range of interesting people I meet who are equally excited about paddling. Throw ten random kayakers together and 5 minutes later everyone has nine new friends. It's true! I've seen it happen countless times.

Today, I'm approximately 90% converted to Greenland kayaking, and I'm always trying to learn new rolls/strokes. In 2010/2011, I paddled on each of the Finger Lakes in Upstate New York. In 2011, I moved to California with Big Purple, and we spent the next three years exploring the US West Coast. During the summer of 2014, Big Purple and I traveled cross-country, taking many dips in the Pacific Ocean and Great Lakes along the way.

​I moved to the Netherlands in August 2014, where I joined a kayaking club and found lots of opportunities to explore old Dutch cities by water. During summer 2015 I traveled all over Europe with friends from the US, and managed to squeeze in a few paddling trips. As of September 2015 I live in Antwerp, Belgium, where I'm patching together paddling opportunities whenever Belgian weather and my new full time job permit!

August 2014 in Gent, Belgium. Photo by S. Schiffeleers.

Why is it called the Naked Kayaker?

Fortunately (or unfortunately), the reason is not as exciting as the name might imply. Once upon a time, in the summer of 2004, I spent a great deal of time on Canandaigua Lake at my friends', Lauren and Alex, lake house. We often paddled around on their sit-on-top kayaks. One day, as I paddled ahead, my hair and the kayak seat concealed the ties on my bathing suit (I was being unsafe and not wearing a PFD), making it look like I was kayaking naked. I was awarded the nickname naked kayaker on the spot, and it stuck.

If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.
Thanks for reading,
Nena

August 2014 on Owasco Lake, New York with Big Purple. Photo by M. Rajamani.

Why do I keep a kayaking blog?

• I have terrible memory. While I have a reputation for taking too many photos, these low angle shots from a boat often look the same, blurring together over time. Here, I string them together with words and describe the experiences that can't be captured through a lens.
  
• Resource for other paddling enthusiasts. I hope to make my posts accessible and useful for future trip planning by organizes trips by location and assigning categories (e.g. distance, conditions) to each post.
  
• Keep family and friends in the loop. 
  
• Motivation to explore new places. It encourages me to drag myself and my kayaking buddies to new (and sometimes faraway) places so we can experience different paddling conditions and scenery.

Zaton Mali, Croatia in February 2015. Photo by E. Prentice.

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