Back to plastic - the Delphin conspiracy

A couple of plastic boats have been added to the fleet, one new and one 'gently used'. The VOR and I started out with the same plastic boat, the stable and absolutely straight tracking Current Designs Storm. Then came the glass and composite skeg boats with day hatches and that lovely gel coat finish. Some friends are still sold on plastic boats, the BadHatter, FrugalFisherman, and KingOfIronwoodIs among the most notable, but lower weight, more stiffness (and hence speed), and of course that sleek and cool look have plenty of sea kayakers in glass and composite boats. But there are many good reasons to have a plastic boat and that's why the venerable Valley Skerray and a trendy P&H Delphin are now stuffed in the garage. How the new one got there is where the thread of conspiracy begins.

I am not one of those guys who jumps out of his boat into water just over the top of his Chota mukluks, in order to protect his delicate gel coated hull. I do admit though, that the brutal beating the BadHatter administers to his Prijon is a frequent cause for envy. There is no rock too sharp, no beach too cobbled for him to abandon his 'accelerate to ramming speed' landing technique. Launches are much the same as the video clip below illustrates. Instruction is another good case for plastic, as is guiding. Contact tows, T rescues, and other tasks are OK with a composite boat from time to time but if they are done a dozen times a day things tend to get scratched and nicked. Rivers with fast water and lots of rocks make plastic attractive as well. Those pesky rocks are unfriendly to high end craft and the gel coat deposits on prominent rocks tell the tale. The above considerations played a significant part, but the main reason I decided to revisit plastic boats were two additional reasons. Surfing and rock garden play, and participating and coaching 'kayak games' type events at classes and symposiums. Those two thoughts meld together like beer and pretzels in the person of one insidious, some would say disturbing indivdual, Mr. Kelly Blades, one of the ringleaders of the conspiracy I've discovered.

Yes readers, Kelly Blades. While assisting him at his sadistic 'kayak games' class at the Washburn symposium I found myself standing up in my NDK Explorer, in the steady rain, while the boat was the top log in a Lincoln Log-like arrangement of kayaks. I don't remember being drugged, yet there I was. The Elite layup did not enjoy the abuse and I wound up spider cracking the foredeck, either then or when I was clambering around on it like a pommel horse at a gymnastics competition, also at Mr. Blades behest. Later that month I found myself in roughly the same situation with his co-conspirator Ben Lawry, and after I showed him the cracked fordeck and brutally savaged Mr. Blades, he suggested the Delphin might be the answer. Since he is a P&H rep this makes sense. So is Kelly, which is where my first inkling of conspiracy began. Then an article shows up in the Gales Spacebook site touting the virtues of the Delphin. The author you ask? None other than Kelly Blades.

The Delphin seed had been subliminally planted and a combination of no boats locally and very pricey boats in the state to the east led me to Bill Thompson of Downwind Sports in Marquette, who solved both problems. Coincidentally enough, the Gales is being held in Marquette and will be attended by one Kelly Blades who will be delivering a talk on....the new P&H Aires/Delphin! Lets see here....cracked fiberglass boat, Delphin suggestion from P&H rep, Gales event in Marquette with strong recommendation of plastic boats, article on the Delphin, keynote address on said boat at Gales......yup, it's pretty apparent that I fell for this Delphin/Gales ponzi scheme hook, line, and sinker. I now own the boat as well as a registration confirmation for the Gales Storm Gathering.

I feel so used. On the other hand I have a sweet boat, two of them actually if the VOR consents to let me play in her Skerray, a boat we owned once before, sold to the BearWhisperer up in Washburn, WI. I can blast down the local rivers, land at the Sand Island light's rock ledge with impunity, and generally be free from the shackles of gel coat. In select occasions of course. Our quartet will saddle up later in the week and head north and east with visions of wind and waves in our heads. I hope to learn more about rough water technique, put the boat through its paces, and go toe to toe with the Grandmaster of this conspiracy, Mr. Blades, with a fine microbrewed beer in both of our hands.

The Gales of.......September?

Next weekend is the Gales Storm Gathering in Marquette, MI. The joke has been the question of whether the event would be cancelled due to bad weather. Meaning sunny, flat calm, with Bluebirds singing and kids running around in shorts. We all hope for a healthy dose of nastiness and there are 'long boats on fast water' classes if it's too benign, but I'm not sure anyone is wishing for what came through on Thursday, a Great Lakes storm that was forecast but managed to outdo itself with its speed and intensity.

The best way to illustrate what went down over the 24 hour period is with NOAA's real time wave chart which is linked under the Lake Superior Trip Planning Tools to the right of this post. Along with the surface water temperature, near shore forecast, and a couple key weather stations, a person can get an accurate picture of what's going on around Gitchee Gumee. It can also be used for vicarious pleasure, to mentally take us to spots where we have been so we can fantasize about gigantic waves crashing on the beach or rocks. The first image above is at 6am on Thursday morning and then again around noon. From a flat calm the seas built over a half dozen hours to eleven footers rolling into the Keweenaw peninsula.
By mid afternoon things have escalated considerably. As the front moved from the northwest in a southeasterly direction the waves built. By 2pm the scope of the storm had increased and by 4pm there were fourteen footers hammering Copper Harbor and Manitou Island at the tip of the Keweenaw.

By dusk wave height and wind had almost doubled. Note the large swath of twenty foot plus waves (purple color) from the tip of the Keweenaw all the way down past Marquette and Munising. I'm not sure how long the storm lasted but by 6am Friday mornings things had moved south and calmed down with 'only' eleven footers on the Keweenaw and sixteen footers near Harvey, MI.

Lake Michigan did not escape either. All the parks in Door County including Rock Island and Peninsula State Parks, are closed due to wind and wave damage. Cyclists and walkers were swept off Chicago lakeshore paths, fortunately with no injuries, and the buoy in the middle of Lake Michigan registered twenty three footers at 5am. The lake, or lakes, are indeed the bosses. I sincerely hope the damage across the area was not too heavy and can be dealt with relatively easily and quickly. I also hope we are granted a taste of this as our intrepid foursome heads to Marquette next weekend, but I think I'll pass on the full five course meal. Soup, salad, and a light entree will be just fine, thank you.

Animal Rescue

I confessed in an earlier post that I thought I might be a camp stove whore. Our trip to Red Rocks last weekend made me realize an even more disturbing personal trait. It would seem that I'm a speciesist. I found out that I "assign different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership". I made this disturbing personal revelation as I watched my paddle companions attempt to rescue a skunk who had gotten itself stuck on a limestone ledge on the north side of Red Rocks Lake.

I believe I noticed the thing first and made the comment, "Hey look, a dead skunk on that ledge". Poor Pepe LePew was looking waterlogged andmotionless but he got to his feet when the boats got closer. Immediately the female component of the group, The VoiceOfReason, Dogs4Bird1, and DebBrunch began the 'oh, isn't he cute, we need to help him' litany. The males, with one very notable exception, were all for either paddling on or mercy skunk euthanasia. And so the rescue began.

This is not the first story I've heard about strong, some would say ridiculous, efforts to rescue vermin. Our good friend in Madison, StHollyOfAssissi, told us about almost sucking up a baby mouse in her vacuum and taking it first to the vet and then to.....only in Madison folks, only in Madison.....some sort of rodent rescue place that actually had a lactating female mouse on site. You can't make shit like that up people, you just can't. The FrugalFisherman and I speculated that this 'rodent rescue facility' was probably located right next door to the Madison Herpetological Society, a wisecrack that was met with a stony look from St Holly. She also took a dead chicken in to the UW Vet School for an autopsy rather than stewing it in broth with some savory vegetables, but chicken are not vermin so I digress.

There were some hikers on the shore and they were recruited to assist in the rescue. It was thought that throwing some branches down might give the dimwitted and malodorous critter the idea that it could climb up the log. Of course no one was even sure if a skunk could climb since most of us had only seen them waddling along or flattened on the highway. I looked over, nodded at DocNordkapp, and he and I paddled off toward the setting sun. He confided to me that the year before he had been involved in a three hour rescue attempt with Dogs4Bird1 of a young raccoon. He persuaded her that if he left a granola bar for it to regain its strength, that it would swim to safety. Needless to say when they came back a week later there was poor Rocky, bloated and floating in the lake. Doc wanted no part of a repeat performance with a skunk and 'took the fifth' with any opinions on the rescue. Meanwhile our buddy Rich was formulating a rescue scenario with the ladies. It was his 65th birthday and I had no idea that he was in fact.....the VerminWhisperer!

I found out that the VerminWhisperer had not only rescued a stranded mouse ala' St. Holly, but in his most impressive vermin preservation effort, had actually carried a turkey vulture to safety on the end of his paddle! One of the first thing's out of the VOR's mouth when she saw poor Pepe's predicament was, "Hand me your spare paddle!". Huh? What!? Hand you my paddle!? She explained she planned to rescue the skunk with her paddle and then use mine to paddle with. So my choice was driving four hours home with either a reeking Werner paddle or a putrid Betsie Bay paddle in the car? That's when Doc and I decided to distance ourselves from the rescue attempt.

We think the story had a happy ending. After the women threw enough logs and branches down the cliff to construct a replica of Boonesborough, Pepe LePew became startled and jumped in the water and started swimming away. I guess we didn't know the damn things could swim either. The VerminWhisperer gently steered Pepe toward safety with his paddle. No odor, other than the usual ones, were detected when he rejoined the group. We figure that either Pepe was curled up in his den, had bitten a small child and given him rabies, or got run over on the highway after he trudged up the hill.

The day ended as we paddled past a bunch of vultures tearing at some dead rodent on a rocky beach. The VerminWhisperer hollered, "How's it goin' Frank!?" and one of the vultures banked in our direction, a sort of salute. I guess that, like Daniel in the Lion's Den, befriending some of the more repulsive of God's creatures just may pay off in the end. Happy 65th buddy, you're the only guy I know that spent his rescuing a skunk. And if you are laying in the desert with an empty canteen, buzzzards circling overhead, I can only hope one of them is your buddy Frank.

Peace Tree: Discovering the tree and the beer

The weekend found us in the Red Rocks Reservoir area, the largest lake in Iowa at 15,000 acres at normal level, considerably more (or less) depending on rainfall and the Army Corps of Engineers, who constructed and run the dam that formed the lake. The scenery is excellent with unusual rock formations, mixed hardwoods, plenty of migrating waterfowl, and very few power boats in the fall. There is even the opportunity to rescue vermin along the lakeshore, but more on that in another post. This particular post is about a giant Sycamore tree, 325 years old before it was drowned when the Red Rocks dam was completed in 1969, and the brewery that is named after it.

We paddled Saturday and Sunday with eight of us launching Saturday from Elk Rock State Park. The park is at the south end of a mile long bridge (clocked on the VW's odometer) that carries Hwy 14 across the reservoir. Just west of the bridge, near the middle of the lake in about 10 feet of water, is the stump of the Peace Tree, sticking out of the water about six feet. In the 1840's it is believed that the tree, a couple hundred years old then, marked the Red Rock Line, the demarcation line between tribal lands to the west of the pre reservoir Des Moines River and the white settlement area to the east.It was a well known meeting and trading place for white and native Americans. The archaeological assessment in the link was to determine the historical significance of the tree, albeit over 20 years after the dam was completed and the area was flooded. Part of the draw of historical locations, particularly living (or formerly living in this case) reminders of history, is the speculation about all the dealings and personalities that passed by or stopped at the tree. The Treaty Oak in Austin, TX is another such tree. The Peace Tree is well known in the area, so well known that a small brewpub that was founded last year used the tree as its company name.

Peace Tree Brewing is less than a dozen miles south of the tree in Knoxville, IA. The brewery is in a converted Nash Rambler dealership on the main drag in Knoxville, a town known for as the host of the Sprint Car Nationals. I'm not sure why the founder chose the Peace Tree over the sprint cars as the brewery name but I like the choice. I like the brewery and its product as well. We met there Friday night when the VOR and I rolled into town and tried several of their beers. No food is served here but they have the menus from several local restaurants and food can be ordered in, in our case a couple large pizzas. The one thing I noticed about the beers is that they seem to be true to style, or at least my idea of beer styles. I sampled a very nice crisp and refreshing Kolsch, their wonderfully balanced IPA, a fine red ale, and a sneaky 8.5% ABV unfiltered Belgian Ale, the Blonde Fatale shown in the image right. Some brewpubs and neighborhood bars just have a feel to them, an unpretentious, 'theme' free (eg sports bar, 'fern' bar, fake Irish pub, etc.), relaxing and homey vibe. Peace Tree has the feel and its a lovely place to drink beer.

The Red Rocks Reservoir was a lovely place to paddle also. The big fluctuation in water level makes for interesting rock formations being alternately exposed and under water. This year the water was at 'normal pool' level and last year it was way down for dam repair. Only a couple short months earlier the water was several feet higher as evidenced by driftwood and the obvious vegetation line. The lake has a few homes on it but most are set well back due to the wildly varying water levels. There is plenty of fetch for some wave action and the sheer cliffs offer some nice clapotis when the wind is right. We had a little 10 knot north/northeast going which gave us a little bounce by the cliffs, just enough for a taste of excitement in spots. It was great to see the Iowa/Nebraska gang and ooh and aah over the new Valley boats that had been added to the fleet. I would have to say the most interesting event of the paddling segment of the weekend was the dramatic animal rescue that took place on Saturday. That however, needs to be completely fleshed out in a separate post. Look for it here soon.

Think globally, drink locally

I noticed that my last several posts were all about kayaking which is perfectly normal since its prime paddle season. I have been consuming some beer as well and with a bit of luck and perhaps the investment of a few bucks I might be consuming more locally brewed beer in one of the most unlikely places for a brewpub, South Minneapolis. Unlike Northeast Minneapolis where bars alternate with churches on every block of 4th St NE from Broadway to Lowry Ave, the upright Scandinavian Lutherans in the southern part of town have pretty much limited the beer drinking opportunities to a few 3.2 bars on the periphery of the area. This could change if the Smokehouse Brewpub gets off the ground.

The reason that Smokehouse as well as Fulton Brewery are even considering building facilities in Minneapolis is because of the passage of the Minnesota Pint Law, a law which allows breweries to sell pints of their own beer on their own premises. As John Tevlin, business columnist for the Star Tribune, wrote in his story on the new venture, "This is made possible by a new law that allows pints of beer to be sold at breweries in Minnesota, just like in many civilized countries". If a couple friends stop over on Sunday to watch the Packer-Bear game though, you still ain't gonna get a six pack in this state but one hurdle at a time I guess. The interesting thing about the Smokehouse project is the community investment aspect. With cash being tight these days, the three partners are selling shares or memberships to raise the seed capital, at which point Park Midway Bank in St Paul will lend them the rest of the money. It sounds like the vision is a neighborhood brewpub with smoked food that is made on the premises. Jon Tevlin's linked story above explains the concept in greater detail. What's not to like? They will still need to run the brain numbing, insanely complicated, and stultifying gamut of Minneapolis city inspectors, which should add at least six months to their tentative opening date, but I have to give them credit for the effort and wish them well. Up in Brooklyn Park, Surly Brewing, the folks that got the common sense Pint Law jump started, is planning a huge brewery complex where they will indeed be selling their own pints.

Overall beer sales in the US dropped last year while craft beer sales rose 11%. I would hope that more people are turning to beers with actual flavor rather than the over carbonated, 'only tastes good when ice cold' BudMiller products. In the 'think globally, drink locally' concept, we have more and more choices every week. A few weeks back we hit Black Rock brewpub in Marquette, MI. Tomorrow we are off to Red Rocks lake near Pella, IA and there have been promises of a trip to the Peace Tree Brewery near Knoxville. A certain Iowa paddler (I won't point any fingers Doc) claims he's been hiding a couple Blonde Fatale's in his fridge since he forgot to pack them for the trip to Gitchee Gumee in August. The trend of small, independent local breweries continues. It would seem like the BudMiller's acquisitions of local favorites like Red Hook and Leinenkugels has slowed as well as the expansion of chain brewpubs like Granite City and Rock Bottom. It's great that these organizations have realized that there is a growing market in craft beer but because of their desire to appeal to a broad range of the public, they just don't brew many interesting or assertive beers. I'll take a decent neighborhood bar with a half dozen tap handles that includes Summit Extra Pale, Bell's Two Hearted, and maybe Guiness every time over the brewpub chain.

There should be plenty of kayaking in the next few weeks before frost hits, leaves turn color and dropping, and horny bucks drive me up into my tree stand with my trusty bow. In most paddling venues including Iowa this weekend, Marquette, MI for the Gales event next month, and of course the Thirsty Pagan fueled run to the Apostles, good beer in friendly local bars and brewpubs is available to add to the total experience of the paddling road trip. Be sure to stop and smell the hops along the way.