sbruce

Where Tuesday's Mystic Lakes session -- at the Tufts Boat House Ramp?

Medford

The Lower Mystic Lake - in Medford on the Mystic Valley Parkway is a possible location for flat, fresh water practice sessions. Tufts University Boat House ramp on Mystic Lake, Medford. (It's located off the Mystic Valley Parkway and is convenient to Routes 2, 128, and 93. From 93, take Route 60 West. Stay on Route 60 for about 3 miles until a flashing yellow sign. Turn right onto Sagamore and then at end, take a right onto Mystic Valley Parkway. Watch for the sign for the Tufts boat ramp on the left, less than 0.25 mile.

--scott

Thanks for working the problem, Kevin. I hope the Feb 10th date comes through.

scott

The 1/27 pool session in Beverly was a bust because there was no lifeguard. Bummer. Especially after dragging in the boats, suiting up, and waiting around the pool side for an hour-and-a-half for a lifeguard to show, who didn't.

So what's next: A refund? Rescheduled session? What about future Beverly sessions?

Awkward questions, I know . . . (but somebody has got to ask).

Scott

I'm currently recovering from two herniated discs in my lower back and I paddle at least once a week so here's what works for me.

Walk three miles a day. Brisk. Nothing builds core musculature in the lower back like walking. I also swim a half an hour virtually every day and do yoga but walking is the ticket.

Get a lighter boat. I sold my plastic barge and built a 30 lb skin-on-frame.

Medication. If you insist on paddling and know you'll be uncomfortable on the water, ask your doctor for an appropriate pain-killing prescription.

Scott

Looking for an experienced kayaker or two to join me soon in a 5-6 day (100+ mile) paddle north up the Maine coast from Hampton Harbor, NH to Casco Bay area (Portland+) while the water is still fairly warm. Trip window between November 12 and 22 in order to be back home for Thanksgiving. We'll poach camp on beaches and islands all the way so fires unlikely as a rule. (Yes, those cold mornings will be #@$#@! miserable . . . .)

Requirements: 3+ years of camping and coastal paddling experience with a reliable roll and ease with 5+ mile open water crossings. You'll need your own kayak and camping gear (two paddles, farmer john or dry suit, neoprene hood and gloves, strobe & C-light, VHF radio, tent, sleeping bag, dry bags, and so forth). We'll share food and meals (cooked on two stoves).

This tour is a continuation of a five-day trip I made in 2005 from the Mystic River (Somerville/Medford) to Hampton Harbor, where I had to quit (just a few miles short of Kittery -- my goal) because rangers there wouldn't let me set up my tent in a full campground. (Peak-season motel rooms were $300+ a night with three-day minimum!)

By the way, I'm in my early 50s, wear an ill-fitting tuilik, and I paddle a handbuilt SOF that's fading to the color of dog-pee-on-snow. (Don't say I didn't warn you . . . .)

Scott Bruce (North Cambridge)

sdotadotbruceatverizondotnet

h/o (617) 492 5004

Anyone have an email address for paddler Rich Stewart?

--scott

Thanks for the speedy reply, Dee. I'm in no hurry on the renewal question.

At the party last Saturday you listed three U.S. suppliers of outdoor fabrics (including sheet neoprene). Seattle Fabrics I remember but the other two (MacMillan??) and (Wilderness Materials ??) I can't google into daylight for the life of me. Could be tell me again, please? Thanks.

--scott

Moneywise, is my NSPN membership separate from my ACA membership? Last month I renewed my ACA membership online in order to get the VIP discount on a new Subaru. The ACA immediately sent my new card -- good "thru 6/30/06" -- (though the card doesn't mention NSPN). At the holiday party last saturday I picked up a pair of the NSPN renewal forms but -- at a glance -- it's not obvious how to tease the two organizational fees apart. Am I good or do I owe you guys as well? Do I get a second NSPN card? Do I need it?

--scott

Indeed.

--scott

Touche, Poncho. Patrick pretty much sums up the exchange.

--scott

And I'm sorry to have offended you, my priapistic friend. After all, my original post was merely an enthusiastic effort to get a better price on a few sheets of lousy neoprene for a simple do-it-yourself project! What innocence. Little did I know that I'd soon stumble across the REAL Jacques Cousteau!

***************

Seriously Mark, I've heard great things about you. Let's give this nonsense a rest and enjoy our 'nice lives' (you can go on shilling for Sierra Trading Post and I'll go on hunting seals . . . .). It's been fun but I bet you have better things to do. I know I do. Deal?

--Scott

Ouch, Mark, I guess you got me. I'm not a scuba diver so I'll defer to your personal experience that a wet-suited diver's head (skin, scalp and hair) remains warm and dry under his/her neoprene helmet -- particularly at depth and in cold winter water.

Doesn't a tuilik's "face gasket" work only at or very near the low-pressure environment of the ocean's surface? Irregularly shaped, elastic (moving jaw), and often beard impeded, the human face must be a difficult surface to seal. Again I don't know, but I suspect diver drysuits would have warmer "face gaskets" -- like a tuilik -- instead of neck gaskets if the later wouldn't leak so at depth.

Call me stupid but I think we should give the traditional paddlers of the Arctic some credit for condition-appropriate designs. (After all, didn't they bring us the Eskimo Pie and a few other delights we enjoy?) If, over generations of trial and error, they found a separate sealskin helmet warmer, dryer, and ultimately safer than an attached hood, wouldn't they have adopted that design for their paddling jackets?

Scott Bruce

Gee, Mark . . . I can see you've given the underside of tuiliks -- and their "mystery" -- a lot more thought than I have. Has any one beside you encountered the "static brace" problem? Have you tried rolling in cold sea water as a cure? ;-)

Which leads us the the downside of your proposed "virtual tuilik." As you well know, tuiliks keep cold water away from your neck and head. Hoods, helmets and skull caps don't. The price of your red combo is right but little else.

Scott Bruce

Are you an aspiring Neo-Greenlander on the fence about getting a practical but EXPENSIVE tuilik? A Reed or Brooks model off-the-rack costs $250-350, while a custom fitted garment can be made by hand from a pattern for around $125. In addition to the money saved, your hand-made tuilik will fit both you and your boat perfectly.

Each pattern-made tuilik requires two 3 mm neoprene sheets, which can be purchased online from Foamorder.com out in California. (These sheets are 53" x 81" each.) Bought two at a time, 3mm neoprene sheets cost about $90 each. However, if five (5) of us tuilik makers band together and order as one (ten sheets), the price per sheet will drop to $47. We'll each save $$$$.

I want dark brown neoprene for my tuilik: how about you? (I think brown looks the best though hot pink or yellow might be safer. Black is also available but we'll look like rolling nuns . . . with Turner Wilson of the Pond Scum, by extention, Our Most Reverend Mother. Yikes! )

Here's the link to the neoprene supplier:

http://www.foamorder.com/neoprene.html

(Note: You'll see that water immersible Grade 2 sheets of 3mm thickness are priced at $86.40. However, these sheets have no backing - just raw neoprene. A black nylon backing costs an additional $4.75 per sheet.)

Patterns cost $14.99 from QajaqUSA (No doubt others may be found on the web as well.). Here's the link (scroll down to bottom of page):

http://www.qajaqusa.org/QUSA/merchandise_online.php

Please call me or email if interested.

Scott Bruce

617 492 5004

Can anyone recommend a Boston-area acupuncturist? I've got shoulder tendonitis that's painful and too slow to heal. (A MRI during the summer revealed no major rotator cuff tears -- just lots of little, inoperable ones.) I've never tried acupuncture so tell me, does it help with just pain or heal the injury?

Scott Bruce

Sceptical of the forecasted 4-6 foot waves from a westerly wind so close to shore, I did paddle out to Great Misery the day after Thanksgiving expecting to find a few club stalwarts there swapping leftovers. It was a beautiful sunny day with seas one-to-two feet and a steady 15 knot wind (occasional 25+ knot gusts forced me to dig in that paddle . . .). I landed at North Cove a little after 1pm and, with an apple pie in hand and a tuperware of sliced turkey in the other, I walked around the island looking for other NSPN paddlers. No takers at Wild Cove. No takers at South Beach. So much for the power of club traditions . . . .

By 2:30 pm I was preparing to leave when a small orange, unmarked helicopter (similar to the scout copters in the movie Apocalypse Now) arrived from Salem and circled three times. The helmeted pilot and passenger -- each pressed to the glass of their respective windows -- were apparently unimpressed by my casual "thumbs up" and "Ok" signs -- perhaps they didn't read well against the rocky beach background. Not until I threw open my arms in a great big "WHAT THE F**K DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" gesture did they finally wave and turn away to the north.

The paddle back was uneventful; the wind had dropped but the seas were up.

Anyone know the story of that little orange, mystery copter? It had no Coast Guard or commercial markings.

Scott Bruce

sof - yellow snow

I'm interested in the course as well.

Yes, Rockwell Kent's paintings are beautiful (a stunning Maine coastal seascape hangs at the MFA). I bought the book last month after reading Adam's review in a past issue of ACK. Another insight into traditional life near the arctic circle is the 1920 black-and-white documentary film which is available from Netflix. Living with his clan on the northeastern shore of Hudson's Bay in Canada, the hunter Nanook -- "The Bear" -- is seen over four seasons paddling, hunting from, and repairing his "Kiak", a wide bodied seal-skin craft with a tall, round cockpit. (Nanook paddles without any kind of spray skirt, even in fairly rough seas. Instead, he wears white, shaggy pants made of polar bear skin. His paddle is very long, maybe 8 feet or more). Six or seven other kayaks of similar design are also seen from a distance as clansmen paddle out to an island in search of walrus. Other scenes detail walrus hunting on foot, iqloo making, spear fishing for salmon from an ice floe, seal hunting, dog sledding, fox snaring, and trading furs for supplies at the trading post. Every hunt scene - and there are quite a few -- is punctuated with lots of lip-smacking, blade-licking butchery. Yummm! In the summer months, the clan travels on protected water by rowing a long (30+ feet) canoe made from seal-skin covered drift wood. Best of all is the film's opener where we are treated to a jaw-dropping demonstration of his Kayak's amazing storage capacity (much imitated in car commercials since the 1960s when was rediscovered). Nanook paddles up -- his boat level and high in the water -- to a pebbly shore with one of his small sons lying flat on the fore desk. Nanook steps out, bridges the boat to shore with his paddle (slipping the blade under a bungee-like deck line), and lifts his son to land. Then from the apparently empty boat, out pops Nanook's smiling wife, Nyla, who wriggles up out of the cockpit carrying their baby, followed by a larger child, and finally, their dog -- yawning and blinking from his interrupted snooze!