fitness paddling: exercise, train, race by kayak & canoe

• Back Home And Recharging My Batteries
• Paddle Faster?
• I'm Injured After All
• The Scariest Moments during the Challenge
• Challenge Over! Still Loving the Kruger???

For the past few years, my choice of sea kayak has been NDK's Romany or Explorer. Still, I choose not to use my sea kayak in the WaterTribe Ultimate Florida Challenge (UFC), and instead paddled a Kruger Canoe, a boat up until 8 months before the Challenge, I had never even paddled. So, was I happy with my choice.

I chose the Kruger Dreamcatcher for the UFC because everything I had read and researched, and saw, in my previous Everglades Challenges had me believing that a Kruger would be the driest and most comfortable boat to paddle, for 40 miles a day, everyday for 30 days, compared to a typical sea kayak. It's size also offered the additional bonus of letting me bike tow the portage rather than walk-tow the 40 miles.

My Explorer might be more playful for a few hours, but the Dreamcatcher surprises me all the time. It's such a great traveler, I can't wait to start planning some trips with it soon.

Paddling the Dreamcatcher always draws questions from sea kayakers. Questions often based on misinformation, ignorance and/or narrow mindedness. I think most see canoes only as being being paddled on calm lakes or rivers. They don't realize that there is a whole history of expedition in touring canoes. Most that rival and actually best the current sea kayaking expeditions that are so popular right now, and which are getting a lot of press.

Sea Wind or Dreamcatcher are very popular boats in WaterTribe events, but, usually, they enter challenges in class 3 equipped in relatively large sails and outriggers or linked together into a catamaran - just look at all these colorful sails at the race start. I believe that only SandyBottom. RiverJohn and me paddled Kruger solo boats in class 1 limited to a small downwind sail.

Related posts in Wayfarer blog:

• First Monarch Canoes Paddled by Steve Landick in 28,000 Miles Ultimate Canoe Challenge
• Steve Landick on paddles during a long expedition voyage
• All Things Are Possible - Verlen Kruger Books
• Random thoughts and Shots from the 2006 UFC: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3