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 a passion for kayaking. The best part of kayaking is how easy it is to connect with other paddlers. Put ten random kayakers in a room, 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 explored 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. From 2015 to 2017 I lived in Antwerp, Belgium, where I paddled many of the Belgian rivers and canals. Since April 2017, I'm back in the Netherlands, in Rotterdam, and a happy member of the Never Dry kayak club! 

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 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 paddlers. I hope to make my posts accessible and useful for future trip planning by organizing trips by location and categories (e.g. distance, conditions).
• 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 and document different paddling conditions and scenery.

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

Subscribe here!

I occasionally send newsletters by email with a summary of recent blog posts. Sign up here if you'd like to get an update ~every other month or so! Alternatively, follow me on Facebook!

Give me a shout!

Since January 2018 I've started getting a lot of spam through this form. Please include the word boat somewhere in your message. I will use that to filter my inbox! Let's see if we can beat the spam that way. Thanks :)