AUTHOR’S NOTE: The intent of this column is entertainment, usually at the expense of truth and accuracy, but I sneak in some good information as well. It is up to the reader to distinguish between entertainment and reality amidst all the circumlocution and misdirection in these sketches.
Q: What happened here?
A: Let’s analyze the photo. Calm, flat water, no wakes or shock waves showing ripples under or behind the canoe, neither boy has a paddle in either hand, no leaning or off-balance positions, feet flat on the hull in front of them.
Given the set of observations above, there are a few possible ways to explain this photo:
- This is a classic example of photo-shopping, or
- This was in fairly shallow water, and someone fairly strong was in the water flipping the canoe over
- These boys got their picture taken on another planet where our laws of physics do not apply.
Q: What is meant by “Picking a line”?
A: This is when you see a fishing line dangling from the trees (aka “limb line” or “wad of trash”), and you need to pick it out of the air to make it safe for the paddlers behind you and the birds, fish, turtles and other wildlife that can get entangled in it. Proper technique is important, and there are some nuances that should not be overlooked. For example, an important safety tip is that you must glance around furtively, but not too furtively, to make sure the offensive lineman who set the line isn’t watching you. I’d say middle furtively would be about right.
NOTE: Even though this is not the correct interpretation of picking a line, the concept is important, and many of us, both liberals and conservatives, get more use out of the knives on our vests cutting abandoned lines than anything else. Consider always carrying a Ziploc® bag for any monofilament you might be able to remove from the environment. Just throw the sandwich overboard and fill your bag with the offending line you cut from the branches and twigs, leaving your paddling trail a little better than you found it for all who follow. This has been a rare public service announcement, and it has now come to its end.
Q: Can you help me understand kayak math?
A: You should know that I am not uniquely qualified to take you through the math, but I can do it. I have owned 25 kayaks and 3 canoes in the past 9 years in a self-regulated buy-to-try program. Most of them came from Craigslist. There were a few club purchases and trades, and two were new from the store, one ordered and one “off-the-rack”. But this is all useless chatter, avoiding answering the question at all costs, like any competent journalist. So, departing from the time-honored practice of ignoring the question, let’s get down to it . . .
Kayak math is all about quantity, with a secondary objective of understanding diversity. Now, pay attention, because this next part is the key to understanding kayak math (did you notice the skillful use of foreshadowing?) - The understanding of diversity implies comparison, and it takes at least two to compare, so boom, you have to start with no fewer than two kayaks. Hopefully you have selected two different types of kayaks for this first comparison, but it doesn’t really matter – you can catch up later. If you chose, say, a plastic whitewater kayak and a carbon fiber sea kayak, trying them in the same environments will definitely open your eyes to some key differences.
You might want to think about the environments with an eye toward kayak survivability and compare your precious purchases in the sea kayak environment (no rocks).
You do your trials, and then decide on your next group – maybe a recreational plastic sit-inside and a tandem plastic fishing SOT (sit-on-top).
You build a kayak rack with 4 positions. Then you say, what the hell, I already have the tools out, and you build another rack with 4 positions. Now you need 4 more kayaks to fill the racks you have. With a fleet of 8 kayaks, you have a good selection, and you start guessing which one will work best for the next outing on the calendar. After a while, you start getting pretty good at this, and you decide you need another four kayaks with some refinements – maybe a longish plastic sea kayak for the Bodson Marathons, and maybe a “crossover” kayak for Walters’ progressive camping trips. And suddenly another 4-kayak rack is needed, and again, you already have the tools out, so why not two? Filling the new racks brings you up to 16 kayaks, which I consider a decent start. If you were unusually wise in your selections, this could even be your final number.
A word about significant others as they relate to kayak mathematics . . . Significant others have been known to encourage using other parts of the mathematical universe that I had never considered – I’m talking about subtraction, division, percentages and fractions instead of the more natural and intuitive functions of addition, multiplication and geometric progression. I myself have been coerced back down to two kayaks:
Does anyone need a rack?
Q: What did Orrin “The Overachiever” Woodward say that would be relevant to paddling?
A: “If life is like a canoe in a raging river, then wisdom is the paddle to successfully navigate.”
I know, sounds kind of lame for such a famous, bright, multi-faceted guy . . .
I would modify it to “If life is like a canoe in a raging river, then wisdom is the way you use the paddle to successfully keep yourself out of trouble”. Also, what the hell are you doing in a raging river in the first place? I’m thinking the raging river is more like life, so you have no choice about being in it, and the canoe is the vehicle composed of all of your life’s experiences taking you through it, and wisdom is how you apply strokes of the paddle based on the lessons learned from those experiences. But then again, I’m not famous, particularly bright or multi-faceted, so I could be wrong.
Q: What does a “Bayou-Vac” do?
A: The Bayou-Vac is a specially designed tool that sucks apple snails out of the bayou. It can handle the biggest of these bad boys and is our last line of defense against annihilation by their hostile, slimy, predestinated eventual takeover. From the Bayou-Vac, the still-live snails are dumped into giant metal crates with screen bottoms. When the snails all are foot-down against the screen at the bottom of the creates, an Apple-Vac sucks all the apple snail meat through the screen, shredding it with extreme prejudice and redepositing it into a hamburger-like mass in large trays. These trays are covered and quickly transported to Lester’s Burger shack, where the meat is partitioned, shaped and cooked into very fresh, very high-protein “gourmet escargot” burgers on a sesame seed bun – a local farm-to-table sensation.
Q: From a crossword puzzle, 13 across:
The derogatory term that describes a canoeist who is not proficient at his craft
7 letters, ends in an “r”
A: Kayaker
WORD OF THE MONTH: Ataraxy (aka Ataraxia)
Definition: A state of serene calmness
Used in a sentence:
- Ataraxy is my objective on many paddles.
- Sometimes it is difficult to be sure via third-party observation, but the girl in the Oru kayak appears to have achieved ataraxia at the moment captured in this photograph:
THE LOCH NESS BEAVER:
As you may recall from the first installment, last month I was ataraxying (not a legitimate form of the word, but you know what I mean) near my pond one morning when I saw what turned out to be a beaver cruising through all the turtles and fish. After that first sighting, I did not see it again, but it could be that I simply did not ataraxate nearly as much after the pipe burst in our master bathroom and flooded that side of the house and our basement. Ataraxation/ataraxia was pretty much out of the question after the flood, and we came back to Houston before we spent any additional quality time at the pond. I will check in on him again when I return, but since the microburst that hit our neighborhood last week, the stream is back up and running, and he’s probably happy with his already-finished digs there in the stream. Time will tell.
GOOD ONE:
MUG O’ THE MONTH:
OVERHEARD . . .
PARTING THOUGHT:
