Blog - The Naked Kayaker

Leie River in Gent, Belgium: from Pastures to Centrum

8/30/2014

Downtown Gent, a historic city in northwest Belgium. The second building from the left is the oldest building in the city.

Bridget, Stijn, and I met up in Gent for a one-way paddle from outside the city to the city center, where we partook in typical Belgian activities like beer-drinking and french fry-munching. We paddled under ancient bridges, circumnavigated a moat around a castle, and broke into a canal house after Bridget jumped into the canal to save her phone... Read on :)

Finally in Belgium: Antwerpen!

8/25/2014

Dark skies over Delft

Another guest post by Bridget! Nena's comments in [italics].

We woke up early to pack (again) and walk to the train (again) [Oh Bridget, stop whining]. This time the destination was Belgium, where we are currently spending a week with Nena’s extended family! After groggily getting out of bed and showering, we braced ourselves for rain and headed to the station. Halfway to the station it began thundering, and we increased our pace to reach cover before the downpour [mostly successfully]. I commented, "It's no wonder Europeans wrote such depressing novels, with such weather!" and Nena reminded me that I had already made a similar remark three times. Whoops.

Windmills at Kinderdijk

8/25/2014

Guest blog post by Bridget! My comments in [italics], as usual :)

On Friday we woke up early to do my favorite activity – looking at windmills! We decided to go to Kinderdijk, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where a complex of windmills were built to prevent the flood-prone region from flooding. I don't want to bore you with all the history here [THIS IS NOT BORING! People have lived in this region for a long time, and until the 13th century it was dewatered (by humans) using gravity. Since it is naturally a peat bog, dewatering led to decomposition of the peat (when peat is exposed to oxygen it breaks down and releases carbon into the atmosphere), which makes the ground sink over time. Now lower, the region flooded more often. The inhabitants built levees and water storage ponds, where they could store flood water. The 19 windmills at Kinderdijk (built in the mid 1700s) served to pump water from low-lying areas into these storage ponds. Today, the windmills have long been replaced by electrical pump stations and the mills remain for tourist enjoyment.] If you are interested to learn more, you can find a good description on this website: www.kinderdijk.com...

De Zandmotor, Herring, and the Girl with the Pearl Earring

8/23/2014

Last Wednesday was a day of all-things-Dutch. Again, no kayaking. But there is kayaking on the horizon, so stay tuned!

Bridget and I made a day trip to the Zandmotor - a massive beach nourishment project on the South Holland coastline. Very exciting for a coastal engineering nerd like me.

But if that's not exciting enough for you, we also recreated a famous painting: The Girl with the Pearl Earring. Maybe you've heard of it? :)

Bike Touring on Texel Island

8/21/2014

The West Frisian Islands, along the Dutch coast. Texel island is the furthest west, and connects to the mainland (city of Den Helder) by ferry.

I'm in Delft! This post is not about kayaking...

Bridget spontaneously decided to come visit for 2 weeks after her work cruise in Romania was cancelled. The Netherlands is close to Romania, right? She arrived a day after me and we've been exploring the city of Delft together. Of course, our first inclination was to get out of the city, so we made plans to visit Texel Island, which is one in a string of barrier islands (the Frisian Islands) along the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark...

The Kayak Burrito

8/14/2014

It's a sad day for Big Purple. She's been winterized, thanks to a giant waterproof painter sheet and my step brother, Antoine, to help wrap. Big Purple is now a 16.5' black burrito and will gaze longingly at the pond next to our house in Boston, for the next year:

We've had some epic times together recently, but now it's time for me to do a year of terrestrial wandering in the Netherlands! I was going to say "drier wandering" but then reminded myself of the weather forecast. It's even hard to say "terrestrial" when most of the country is below sea level. Hey, maybe it won't be that different.

Flight departs for Iceland this evening, where my mom and stepdad will stay for the week. We'll go look at some puffins for a few hours before I get on my flight to Amsterdam!

Days 21 - 24: Revisiting Owasco Lake, BayCreek, and NYC

8/12/2014

Kiran, Maya, and Mallika fresh and full of energy

This weekend I met up with Maya at her grandpa's lake house on Owasco Lake where we spent the day kayaking with her brother Kiran and sister Mallika. We launched from the lake house (east side of the lake) and paddled north. Back in 2010 I paddled around the southern half of Owasco, so much of this territory was new to me.

Days 19 & 20: Rough Rider Reunion on Lake Ontario

8/7/2014

Paddling back into the Lake Ontario sunset. Mark, Dave, Janet, and others in the distance

Yesterday evening turned into Rough Riders Reunion 2014. In the wise (and paraphrased) words of Mike Peet: "Paddling like it's 2009!" The turn-out was fantastic (26 boats!), and the waves were apparently the largest of the summer. It was a perfect evening for rock gardening and practicing towed rescues. A bunch of the original Rough Riders were present, including Jeff H, Mike, Steven, Dan, Jeff B x 2, Rita & Garnetta, Sue, Ann-Marie, Nick, Dave, and I. It was also fun to meet some newer (i.e. in the last 3 years, so maybe not so new) members. Matt from Brooklyn was in the area for a couple weeks and recently bought a boat from BayCreek. I'll be in NYC on Monday to visit friends, and he provided some helpful tips for kayaking around the City...

Day 18: Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

8/5/2014

The Legend of Sleeping Bear (courtesy of NPS)
Long ago, along the Wisconsin shoreline, a mother bear and her two cubs were driven into Lake Michigan by a raging forest fire. The bears swam for many hours, but eventually the cubs tired and lagged behind. Mother bear reached the shore and climbed to the top of a high bluff to watch and wait for her cubs. Too tired to continue, the cubs drowned within sight of the shore. The Great Spirit Manitou created two islands to mark the spot where the cubs disappeared and then created a solitary dune to represent the faithful mother bear.

You can see the two islands in the map to the right.

Day 17: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (no kayaking...)

8/4/2014

Dune slide at the end of the Grand Sable Falls trail

Last night we crossed the Eastern/Central time zone and realized it was much later expected, so we pulled over and camped in the Squirrel Rapids Picnic Area, halfway between the Apostle Islands (WI) and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (MI). We were up early to the sound of lawn mowing all around us. After a quick stop at a farmstand for veggies and breakfast, we drove across much of Michigan's Upper Peninsula (the UP) on Route 28.

At Pictured Rocks we attempted to find a campsite at the Twelvemile Beach Campground (I'm pretty sure this is where Marika and I stayed 3 years ago), but all the sites were full (on a Monday!). Instead, we headed a bit further east to the Upper Hurricane River campground and snagged a big site where we cooked up an extravagant veggie-full burrito lunch.