tyson

I own a couple of those Gerber River Shortys! They are great knives! I store mine at the bottom of a couple of local lakes. :-( Ty

It does appear to be more durable than the Pentax, but possibly not more so than the Olympus. The review lost credibility with me because it didn't even acknowledge the existence of the Pentax and Olympus cameras. Some of its claims are not true because those cameras exist. To be a good review, it really need to compare to them. Cheers! Ty

Though the attachment appears to be secure, grabbing it requires some fingers squeezing on the knife and some on the sheath. I like the DeepSee knife because it is secure and you deploy it by securely grabbing the knife. Cheers! Ty

:-) May I ask why not? My complaint had been that they were not secure in the sheath until I found the type that I use now. Cheers! Ty

New reply to an old thread. I don't want to restart the holy wars of knives vs hooks vs scissors, but specifically addressing the concern about knives falling out when they should stay put (such as during rescue): I use one of these: http://www.deepseeinc.com/products/squeeze_lock.html They don't fall out due to their locking mechanism and yet are very easy to deploy quickly. I ended up with this after going through about 3 other popular types that all disappeared into the water during re-entry or roll practices.

I couldn't stand it so I've hand edited the incorrect photo locations on Picasa. They are all now at least close to correct. Ty

Some of the group where having difficulty with the winds and substantial seas and chop. Boat loading/balance may have been a factor in some cases. It was a very rough ride and progress was slow. It would have taken us quite a bit of time to continue the way we were going. With his experience and wisdom, Rick "suggested" that it would be prudent to retreat to the lee side. It took the group about 12-13 minutes to get to the point that we turned around and about 5 minutes to retrace. The speed difference was considerable; about 1.5mph vs 3.2mph. The paddling on the lee side was flat and speedy. A small group of strong paddlers without time concerns would have been fine. However, with such a large group turning around was the correct decision. Cheers! Ty

The track seems to be 13.1 miles long, including a tour around the "Dry Breakers" and the aborted start around the east side of Bakers Island.

I seem to be having trouble defeating some of google/picasa's caching or something. The photos are now correctly tagged on my system, but even if I delete the old album and upload it again with a new name, about have the photos are showing (for me at least) in the wrong location. The album is now here: http://picasaweb.google.com/tyson.sawyer/2...feat=directlink There is a chance that people pulling it up new will get it correctly given how file caching can work. ...yes, I deleted my local browser cache.

Dag nab it! It looks like I used the wrong time offset when geotagging the photos with the gps data. They are all off by 1 hour of travel. I'll see if I can get that fixed.

My pics of the L3 trip are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/tyson.sawyer/2...feat=directlink Sorry I didn't get any pictures of the most "exciting" crossings. ...something about hands on the paddle and eyes on the horizon. I didn't think that pictures of the under side of the waves would be very interesting. ;-) There is a screen shot of the GPS track in the pictures. If you'd like to look at the track data directly, try this link: http://tinyurl.com/nnyjmu It is worth noting that Eagle Island doesn't show in the "satellite" view of google maps and the "Dry Breakers" that are SE of South Gooseberry show only in the satellite view. I post at a rather low resolution. If anyone would like originals, contact me. It was a great trip with great people. I look forward to paddling with NSPN for a 3rd time! :-) Cheers! Ty

You also need to practice in conditions representative of what you might need to perform the rescues in. These are the conditions that you will paddle in. If you only paddle on lakes, then practice on lakes is sufficient. If not... Cheers! Ty

Bill! I'm still coming! Cheers! Ty

QUOTE(Kevin B @ Jun 26 2009, 09:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Forecast seeming a bit inappropriate for circumnav at the moment...back up plan would be rough water skills practice and rescues... Doesn't that back up plan automatically kick into play if the conditions aren't good?

Compass as only heading reference: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XlFN9...feat=directlink

Some of the folks on that forum are advocating hand held compasses. Such compasses are OK for occasional reference on flat water to check visible land marks. When paddling beyond sight of land (perhaps fog?) it is difficult to paddle in a straight line without a constant heading reference (normally you would pick something on the horizon) and a hand held can't offer that, esp. in rough seas. I prefer a large compass out front where I can see it while paddling. ...yeah, I can fly on instruments too. ;-) Cheers! Ty

My future father-in-law bought one of those. The lighting mechanism didn't last one trip into the water. I don't recall the details, but when I inspected it I concluded that the sealing mechanisms where deficient in design and that getting it exchanged was pointless. The mounting didn't work reliably either. I use a Brunton 58. It doesn't solve the night problem, but works well otherwise.

We'll be taking a clinic at CRCK this evening that might help and we are renting a couple of skinny solos (not sure exactly what) to take out onto Ipswich Bay (or something like that) tomorrow. Hopefully we can improve our technique because that will help our pace a lot more than strength or endurance at this point. We're not using winged paddles. Emilie didn't get a feel for them the one time we tried them and since we do mostly mixed fun/touring, a race paddle may not be the best choice for us. However, I'd think that so long as you got the angle of attack correct that a winged paddle would do a powerful (use way too much paddle) lay-back/greenland roll. :-) Thanks for all the pointers guys. It will give me stuff to think about as we try to learn this. Cheers! Ty

Great pictures! Looks like a nice trip.

That sounds like just the sort of Zen I'm trying to learn. :-) I'll give that a try. Thanks! Almost sounds like a line from "The Matrix". ;-) Cheers! Ty

That is a bit like I suspected. I've been figuring that I should still get a one of the expensive boring ones for serious calls and use the Spot for fun. Cheers! Ty

I don't expect that being inside a non-metallic hull will be a problem. ...but then I would have expected it to work better on the dashboard of a car where it is under only glass. I do believe that it is important that it be face up so that the antennae faces the satellites. You'd have to think a little about how to keep it looking skyward and not rolling over on its face. Cheers! Ty

Question: Does the stability come from water speed on the hull or does it come from being able to brace a bit on each stroke? Having been lacking others to learn from (until finding this group) I've used books and trial and error. However, I can't figure out to what extent I'm supposed to stabilize at speed with the paddle and to what extent its supposed to come from the hips. Working on it! I'm thinking that there may be value in running down to CRCK to rent a "tippy" solo for a day and put some miles on that out in open water. No suspense on the Blackburn. I just want to be able to hold my head high while saying that I completed it. Cheers! Ty

Here is the GPS track of the trip for comparison: http://tinyurl.com/mfcfxq

Here is something that might be of interest given recent events. I ended up with a free Spot tracker and took it out for the first time yesterday. Here is a track of a trip to work Friday, yesterday's coastal trip from Portsmouth north, and our drive home yesterday: http://tinyurl.com/klrv4j The thing seems to be terrible sitting on the car's dash at the base of the windshield. However, clipped to my shoulder while kayaking it did quite well. I don't know how its performance compares to a "real" EPRB (is that the right acronym for the latest generation?) for reliability of reporting, but it appears to be a lot better than nothing, lets your friends and family be able to keep tabs on your progress and gives you the option of calling for help without declaring and emergency. Cheers! Ty