letters


to the


editor


TRY THIS NOW FOR BETTER BRACES, RUDDERS & ROLLS P.26


Titling an article “Kayak Porn” shows your magazine has poor taste. Certainly I’m not a prude, but I think you could show some class and respect to your readers. I hope the next is- sue will be more representative of the attitudes of the kayaking fraternity.


John Ashdown via email


Much ado about women Te tone of surprise that your Spring 2008 issue took regarding women and paddling struck me as totally misplaced. Why on earth should anyone be at all surprised that women can kayak well?


Anna Mallin Bala, ON


I am the president of the Western Australian Sea Kayak Club. Tis club has mainly male members and we seem to struggle to get fe- male members, unless they are a partner of a male member. While I thoroughly enjoyed reading about


the elite women paddlers, I have to ask myself where we are heading. Why is it that everyone is so anxious to be the fastest around an is- land? If you are so intent on beating someone else’s time then you miss out on what a lot of us are kayaking for in the first place. As a last point, one of our club members,


Sandy Robson, travelled for most of 2007, covering thousands of kilometres along the coastlines of Australia. She started in Victo- ria and paddled alone and unsupported north to the top of Australia and the only reason she stopped was because she was attacked by a crocodile. She flew back to Perth and then


paddled down the coast from Broome. Judy Blight Australia


John, our Spring 2008 issue has been our num- ber-one selling issue to date and wildly successful on the newsstand. You may not be a prude, but in many ways the sport of sea kayaking has been. I’m sorry if we have offended you in our quest to appeal to a slightly younger, hipper audience with the use of language that is fresh and a little bit risqué. “Porn” in this context refers to a popu- lar type of film genre in which there is plenty of action, music and little plot. Te “Kayak Porn” title refers not to the article about women but the one about Bryan Smith’s new action sea kayak film Pacific Horizons, which by the way profiles some of the best women paddlers in the “kayaking fraternity.”—Eds.


I was amazed at your report that the number of women sea kayaking has recently doubled. When we surveyed Canada’s sea kayakers in the mid-1980s, the percentage of women was over 50 per cent. Where did you get your in- formation from?


John Dowd Vargas Island, BC


Te stats we cited on page 35 of the Spring 2008 issue came from the U.S. Outdoor Industry Foun- dation’s 2004 Outdoor Recreation Participation Study. Te stats dealt with participation rates among women; they didn’t specify what percent- age of paddlers are women.—Eds.


Inspired to paddle, but not too fast I really enjoyed your editorial in the latest is- sue (Summer 2008). You prompted me to go to Rene Seindal’s blog and read his piece on “Team Paddling Experiences.” A very thought- provoking essay. I’ve given members in Kayak Newfoundland and Labrador a heads-up about your editorial and Rene’s essay. It’s gen- erated a lot of discussion on our newsgroup.


WRITE US: Tell us what you think. Send correspondence to: Editor,Adventure Kayak, P.O. Box 70, Palmer Rapids, ON, K0J 2E0 or email: editor@adventurekayakmag.com. Let- ters chosen for publication are subject to editing for style and length, and may receive sarcastic replies.


Missed an Issue? Read back issues online at www.adventurekayakmag.com 8 ADVENTURE KAYAK | FALL 2008 Te article on the “Ghost Coast” was fabu-


lous. I’ve kayaked a lot around Burgeo and did a trip from Rose Blanche to Grand Bruit two summers ago. I can’t wait to get back there and paddle some more of the Southwest Coast. I


tip my hat to the quality of the photos. Neil Burgess


Newfoundland


Apologies for apologies It has been brought to my attention that my editorial in the previous issue (“Apologies to everyone I’ve left in my wake,” Summer 2008) may have been misinterpreted as a statement about Wendy Killoran’s behaviour on her Sardinia expedition with Rene Seindal. My intention in quoting Seindal’s de- scription of “mock waiting” was only to explain what I had learned about my own expedition behaviour, not to make a comment about what may have hap- pened on Seindal and Killoran’s trip. Te quotation from Seindal’s blog does not in fact refer to Killoran, but rather to something that generally goes wrong in team paddling. I apologize if my editorial gave the impression that Killoran is a mock waiter and a disre- spectful paddler. Killoran says that she is neither.—Tim Shuff


Write On!


We’re launching a new column written by you. Send us a 500- word personal essay or story about kayaking. For examples, check out the In Parting columns on the inside back page of Adventure Kayak’s 2006 and 2007 issues, readable online at adventurekayakmag.com. Then email your entry to


editor@adventurekayakmag.com.


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+ editorial


Nobody wins this race. PHOTO: RYAN CREARY


Apologies


to everyone I’ve left in my wake


“That looks like a good place to rest,” said Jacques Cousteau, while Mario Andretti and I pretended not to listen and continued our race to the campsite. “Must keep going,” we grunted time and


again. “No time to stop. Rest later.” I am an inveterate impatient traveller. On


my most recent kayaking trip I justified my abysmal behaviour by telling myself that Cousteau just preferred to paddle slowly and check out the sights while the rest of us charged forward. Surely he enjoyed shortcut- ting a kilometre offshore (which is why we secretly nicknamed him “Jacques Cousteau”) while we explored along the shore and waited for him at every headland. Of course, I never bothered to ask “Cousteau” how he felt. It didn’t sink in how terribly I’d behaved


until I was reading a blog, weeks later. Wendy Killoran and Rene Seindal are kayakers from different countries who tried, and bitterly failed, to paddle together around Sardinia last fall. Rene’s blog entry about what went wrong contemplates the importance of information sharing, mutual respect and patience that are integral to any expedition partnership. Rene also slams the ultimate in disrespect-


ful behaviour, “mock waiting.” Mock waiting means waiting just long enough for a slower paddler to get within a comfortable distance,


4 ADVENTURE KAYAK | SUMMER 2008


then taking off before he has a chance to ful- ly catch up and rest. I guiltily realized I knew exactly what Rene was talking about. “Mock waiting is very destructive behav-


iour in a team,” Rene writes. It constantly underlines that ‘I’m faster and you’re slower,’ while it wears the slower paddler down phys- ically too. It can drive the slower paddler into the ground, physically and psychologically.” It further occurred to me that leav-


ing someone in your wake highlights and abuses a power imbalance. Once you get far ahead of someone, it can be almost impos- sible for them to catch up unless you let them. Te cards are stacked against them for reasons made clear by Doug Alderson’s speed chart on page 28 in this issue. Slow- ness gets compounded by wind and cur- rent, so a slower paddler will fall increas- ingly far behind and effectively be paddling farther through the water to get to the same destination. In other words, just as the rich get richer, the slow get slower. I decided I don’t ever want to cause a


Jacques Cousteau dynamic again. So I phoned for some expert advice from SKILS guiding school in Ucluelet, B.C. Instructor J.F. Mar- leau told me what should have been obvious. He said that when paddling with peers, you should first carefully choose partners with


matching abilities, then make sure everybody has the same expectations for the trip, and communicate about any issues that arise. A good way to do this is to start with a


trip contract, which means sitting down with everyone before you leave to reach con- sensus on issues like how fast to travel, when and where to take rest breaks, what pad- dling conditions are unsafe, what to do if the group gets separated, how to communicate and resolve problems, and anything else that anyone in the group wants to lay down as a ground rule. On my next trip I’m going to make a con-


tract, and clause number one will be about paddling speed. I can already look back and remember all sorts of problems that this would have avoided. Like the first long pad- dling trip with my wife when we realized half- way through that only one of us cared at all about how far we paddled each day (hint: she wasn’t the one measuring the map distances with dental floss in the tent each night). And while I’m at it maybe I’ll work on be-


ing a better communicator at home and at work. Because good expedition behaviour is really no different from good behaviour in everyday life. Nobody can be perfect, but a kayaking trip has a powerful way of showing you where to improve.—Tim Shuff


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