When my wife and I started going out, I was more into basic lake canoeing on quiet, misty mornings. My wife didn't enjoy it particularly, as she found the paddling stroke too demanding on upper body strength. Shortly thereafter we tried sea kayaking and found it a much more enjoyable experience. After renting several times, and guided by having not read Deep Trouble (although we had read other books) we plunged ahead and went on a solo 5 day trip in the BC Gulf Islands. No real mishaps or drama...and lots of enjoyment and success.....except for one little time when we HAD (??!!) to paddle up Pender Island, against the tide and winds, along the rocky bluff with no pull-outs. We were using a rented double, and quickly discovered that cockpit spacing is important. Our relationship-building opportuntiy graphically gave us the opportunity to learn that we respond to stress/challenges in different ways, and the failure to do it MY way is not necessarily a failure. In this instance, when faced with hard paddling, my solution was to bear down and use more muscle. My wife's was to increase reps. With limited space between the two cockpits there was a slight flaw in this combined strategy, with lots of grumpiness and little paddling progress. But we learned... On our honeymoon we did a day paddle that required another crossing in the Gulf Islands, and the wind came up to 25 knots or so, in the channel where we were, and we varied from paddling into it to padlding across it. It was alot of hard work, only problematic (for me) when we had some heavy following seas. But it was beyond my wife's comfort zones for that time, and really wasn't alot of FUN (as in...if it is this much stress and work, why are we really doing this?) On the other hand, it has given us lots of wonderful shared experiences, and many "He said, She said" types of stories (like how big were the bow waves from the ferry, and how close were we to them? :-) ) Sam Isaacs saisaacs_at_netcom.ca *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net ***************************************************************************
On Thu, 19 Feb 1998, Chuck Holst wrote: >> >> >>I noticed in the replies to the boats question that a lot of spouses >>or SOs have their own boats. So here is another survey question: >>How many of you are kayaking couples, and were you paddlers >>before you met? really fast... my wife never paddled before we started dating. i took the chance [about spouses/boyfriend/girlfriend's] teaching her to paddle, and it went smoothly enough. two weeks later, i took her on a three day paddling trip, and proposed to her over a bottle of wine, and a dinner i cooked ;-) three months later we won a 36 mile downriver race!! ok, we won _our_ class, mixed recreation, but, we beat the next boat by under 30 seconds, for a 4+ hour race!! we paddled a lot our first year together, some the second year, and now, 6 years later, we own 1 tandem canoe, 1 solo canoe, and 2 sea kayaks, of which she'll probably never paddle ;-( we paddle together 2-3 times a year at most now... mostly whitewater, she loves the adreneline!! but we're one of the happiest couples i know, truly happy with each other. she understands paddling & travel are in my blood, and i know she'd rather clean the living room!!! mark #------canoeist[at]netbox[dot]com-------------------------------------- mark zen o, o__ o_/| o_. po box 474 </ [\/ [\_| [\_\ ft. lupton, co 80621-0474 (`-/-------/----') (`----|-------\-') #~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~ http://www.diac.com/~zen/cpr [Colorado Paddlers' Resource] http://www.diac.com/~zen/rmskc [Rocky Mtn Sea Kayak Club] http://www.diac.com/~zen/rmcc [Rocky Mtn Canoe Club Trip Page] http://www.diac.com/~zen/mark [personal] -- Fortune: The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net ***************************************************************************
On Thu, 19 Feb 1998, Chuck Holst wrote: >> >> >>I noticed in the replies to the boats question that a lot of spouses >>or SOs have their own boats. So here is another survey question: >>How many of you are kayaking couples, and were you paddlers >>before you met? See: http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/postcard/lilypad2.gif only mine was green. bye bye bliven *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net ***************************************************************************
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