Blog - The Naked Kayaker

Waterproof Cameras are Fun! (COE Pool Session #1)

9/20/2010

After a fun-filled weekend at Ontario Greenland Camp, where I learned two new Greenland rolls, I was excited to attend one of Cornell Outdoor Education's kayak pool sessions to practice! If you're ever interested in joining, I can bring up to two guests for free, so check out the dates on the News page and let me know when you'd like to attend.

The turnout was great. 12 people in kayaks in the pool makes for lots of boat-bumping and fun. There was a well-balanced mix of experienced rollers and excited beginners. Click "Read More" to see videos of rolling practice!

Honeoye Lake is Green (Sometimes...)

9/19/2010

The kayak gods were against us yesterday as Jeff Buchman, Heather Adams, and I embarked to circumnavigate Honeoye Lake. I awoke to birds outside my window and thought, "Wow, it sure is bright outside for being 6:30am... ... CRAP! It's 7:45am!" Already 15 minutes late to meet Rob in Trumansburg (a 25 minute drive from Ithaca). As it turned out, Rob couldn't join us anymore, so I was able to give the Rochesterians a heads-up and meet them a half hour later. No stress.

An hour into the drive I got a call from Heather, who was already at Sandy Bottom Park- our launch spot at the north end of the lake. Apparently there were signs posted near the water warning of hazardous water conditions due to an algal bloom. When Jeff and I arrived, we decided to brave the green and paddle anyway!

Greenland Kayak Camp: Guest Blog by Heather Adams!

9/14/2010

Turner describing how the Greenland paddle does its magical work! Photo courtesy of The Complete Paddler.

Here Heather eloquently describes the first night and morning of our trip to the first annual Ontario Greenland Camp, in Bracebridge, ON. Enjoy! -Nena

“It’s the Canadian Shield”, Alan explained, when I asked him to tell me about the beautiful rock formations that we began seeing about 30 or so miles south of Stoneleigh Lake (just north and east of Bracebridge, ON), where Nena & I were heading for the weekend of Sept 11-12th. The Shield is exposed bedrock extending over 3 million square miles in central and northeast Canada, the Adirondack mountains, and then across the water to Greenland. This common ground brought together paddlers from Canada, the US and Greenland last weekend for the first annual Ontario Greenland Camp. James Roberts and Dympna Hayes, co-owners of LearntoKayak.ca (Toronto, ON) hosted the event with support from Kelly McDowell, owner of the shop, The Complete Paddler (Etobicoke, ON). I admit to feeling rather star-struck as we arrived at camp and I met our instructors for the weekend – a Who’s-Who list of Greenland paddling champions – Adam Hansen, Heather Lamon, Cheri Perry, and Turner Wilson!

Read on...

Ontario Greenland Kayak Camp (Nena's Story)

9/14/2010

Warning, it's a long one. I wanted to be explicit so I would actually remember the things I learned! See previous post for Heather's account of the trip!

Ok, it's taken me about 15 minutes to figure out how to start this post so as to accurately profess my excitement about the past weekend. I guess I'll just start from the beginning! This weekend, Heather Adams (fellow Rough Rider from Rochester) and I headed up to Bracebridge, Canada, for the first annual Ontario Greenland Camp, hosted by LearnToKayak, Kayak Ways, and The Complete Paddler.

Day 1: The Drive Up & First Impressions
After an overwhelmingly stressful week of classes, work, TAing, and homework, I departed Ithaca on Friday morning for Rochester. Upon arrival at Heather's house, we loaded my boat onto her car and started the 6 hour drive to Bracebridge, Canada! The drive up was fairly uneventful, and we made it to Camp Tamarack around 5pm. We were feeling a little daunted about meeting a whole new group of kayakers, but we were very excited to meet so many Greenland enthusiasts and kayak lovers like ourselves! After a warm welcome by some of the camp organizers, we settled into our bunk beds (a strange experience since I never went to camp as a kid) and headed over to the main cabin for dinner.

Day 2 AM: Yoga-for-Kayakers, Greenland Strokes, and Rolling Demo
The next day I got up super early for some yoga-for-kayakers. Cheri had us doing all kinds of funny maneuvers on the ground to mimic rolling in our boats. I can only imagine how goofy we all looked, but she kept a straight face! After breakfast we headed over to the beach where all the kayaks were ready to play!

Labor Day on Hemlock: A Different Kind of Finger Lake

9/6/2010

Daniel drifting in the calm.

This is the first year (ever) that Cornell has canceled school on Labor Day! We (Ben, Daniel, Amy, Rob, Anna, Julia, and I) decided to celebrate by tackling a far away Finger Lake: Hemlock Lake! It was a 2 hour drive across 5 other lakes to get there, but it was well worth it. We launched from the North Hemlock Boat Launch. The boat launch was about a mile down the lake. The DEC doesn't let people paddle north of there since that's where the water treatment plant pulls its water from.

Hemlock is characterized by the absence of lake houses along the shores,...