Snow Canoing

Yesterday, we posted our yearly collection of snow kayaking videos, but today we take it to the next level. Here's some snow canoing videos, including a vintage clip from the 1950s. Enjoy!

Kayaks In The Snow

If it's Boxing Day, it must be time for our annual collection of snow kayaking video clips. Enjoy!

HAPPY KAYAKMAS!

That's One Way

Probably not the most conventional way of launching a kayak off the dock....but it worked! Check out the video below:

Kayak Tour to see lights in Brentwood Bay

When I went looking on the blog for postson our times paddling in December to see Christmas lights, all I could find at first were posts mentioning Christmas... So I guess we'll just have to do a December paddle on the Gorge again this year to look for lights. And if you'd like to do your own paddle while watching Christmas lights, there's an opportunity for you in Brentwood Bay! Just saw this notice in the newspaper:

See Christmas lights from a different perspective at Saturday’s Family Kayak Lights Tour. The two-hour tour takes participants into Brentwood Bay in a flotilla of kayaks and canoes.
Tour operator Pacific Paddlesports will give a brief lesson before setting out in the boats, which will be decorated with Christmas lights. Participants are encouraged to dress warmly with a waterproof layer on top. Bring a travel mug for free hot cocoa.
Cost is $25 per person or $75 for a family of four. No experience necessary. The tour runs 4 to 6 p.m. at Port Side Marina, 789 Saunders Lane, Central Saanich. For details, go to pacificpaddle.com.

1890 Canoe Race on the Gorge

Found two old photographs in the City of Vancouver Archives, taken May 24, 1890. They show a holiday scene on the Gorge Waterway, and they're titled "Indian canoe race in gorge, Victoria, BC."  You can click here and here to see the image on the Archives website, and look through other images.

Wonderful to see the canoes, and the rowboats much like those newly-available through Whitehall with their reproductions of classic designs. The shoreline is still thickly forested, while nowadays in this industrialized part of the Gorge Waterway there are trees only on a few private lots and in parks.

I think the location of the 1890 canoe race is on the part of the waterway called the Upper Harbour and Selkirk Water. Races were certainly held here in the past. This part of the waterway is below the narrows under the Tillicum bridge, so these holiday boaters would be avoiding the reversing waterfall at the narrows. If you want to see some modern photos of Selkirk Water and the Upper Harbour, check out these posts on Kayak Yak with photos taken by John.

Old School Irish Kayaking

Here's some British Pathé coverage of a kayak race on the River Liffey in Ireland. If you like a lot skin-on-frame kayaks overturning then this clip is for you.
Check out the embedded video below:

The Most Comfortable Kayak Ever

Memory Lane

I've been going on Kayak Yak and taking a paddle along memory lane today. Remember when Bernie camped on D'Arcy Island? That was an epic kayak camping trip in the wooden kayak he built.
And what about the time a seaplane took off beside us as we were paddling round James Island? Talk about feeling like speed bumps...
I still envy Louise's chance to paddle off Rebecca Spit at Quadra Island. It would be terrific to go as a small group to Quadra, to paddle the Main Lakes, and in the bays. If we had a Clam Shoot, maybe we could book Harper Graham's boat to ferry our kayaks up to Octopus Islands park for the day.
At any rate, that's enough memories for now. Hope you enjoy looking at these past posts too!

There's a Reason For A Skirt

Pro Tip: You should probably put a skirt on before trying a seal launch. Check out the video embedded below:

Kayaking in Light

Here's a look at kayaking as you've never seen it before. This picture, and others like it, are the work of Ontario photographer Stephen Orlando. Using a long exposure technique called light-painting, his kayaking photos capture beautiful curtains of light moving across lakes and down rivers.
You can check out some of his other galleries here; his kayaking gallery is here.

A Leopard Shark Never Changes Its Spots

A couple of weeks ago, a leopard shark checked out a kayaking group in Australia. Check out the video below:

Kayaking Cats

Finally, we have ascertained the ultimate use for the Internet: kayaking cat videos:

Ouch

As the Dire Straits song goes, "Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug." And this would be a bug moment as this poor paddler attempts a rough water launch.
Check out the video below:

Power waves overturn kayak vertically from Renzhi on Vimeo.

My Life With The Salmon - book review

Paddlers, be on the lookout for small boat use in a variety of books, especially books from modest-sized Canadian publishers. The latest paddling fix I've found was in a wonderful title from Theytus Books. It's the second book from author Diane Jacobson, and it's called My Life With The Salmon. Click here for a link to the publisher's website.

While most of the book discusses the author's time working with salmon enhancement programs, there is a strong element of boating. Jacobson and her colleagues use a variety of boats to reach the various places where they are gathering data on salmon and their habitats. If you're not strictly a kayaker, you can read along and nod sagely as she speaks of the small open motorboats being used to cross a river estuary or reach an island, and of canoes on lakes and rivers. There are even some of her colleagues who swim and snorkel downstream to report on river conditions for salmon. Safety concerns while boating are mentioned several times in her book, as well as a healthy amount of awe for her experiences along the rivers and ocean shore of her homeland.

Y'see, Jacobson is a member of the 'Namgis First Nation, and boating is a natural part of the life in her community on the coast. "The river taught me that it has the power to give life and to take life in an instant," she says at one point.

If this were a kayaking book, I'd ramble on about it. But it's great to see the use of small boats being such an important element of such an interesting book. This book was awarded the Best Regional Non-fiction Prize by the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2012.
If you want to see what it's like to be offshore in a small motorboat, we've got a link to a video here. And if you're interested in salmon stories, check out Kayak Yak posts here on our forays into salmon-bearing streams.

It's Hammerhead Time

Earlier this week, a pair of kayakers in Florida had an unexpected follower on their journey: a hammerhead shark. The shark followed them for about two miles before moving off. One of the paddlers later quipped to a local paper, “It’s not really a huge thing to see sharks. But when you have a dorsal fin trailing you like [it's] Jaws, it’s a different story.”
One of the paddlers whipped out his GoPro and shot the footage below:


This wasn't the first hammerhead encounter to get caught on video. Below is an encounter from last year when a hammerhead tried to take a nibble or two from another kayaker, causing the paddler to start hitting the shark with his paddle:

Sidney Spit Reminder

The Gulf Islands National Park Reserve has published a reminder to users of the park that part of Sidney Island -- the park area north of the prominent fence line -- is closed to the public from November 1st 2014 through February 28, 2015. You can find notice of this annual closure in the Times-Colonist.
The park area south of the day-use area on Sidney Spit is closed during the winter for public safety reasons, to facilitate hunting by First Nations during this time. The fallow deer on Sidney Island have become so numerous that a cull is necessary to reduce their numbers.
Though the day-use area of the island is still open to the public, and the mooring buoys and the spit itself are available for boaters to use, it is a good idea for kayakers and other boat users to plan visiting other parts of GINPR until the closure is lifted March 1st.

Expect the Unexpected

So I'm trawling through youtube looking for kayaking videos. Because I have no life. But anyway, I stumbled upon this video. A pair of paddlers are lazily paddling a quiet section of the cold Detroit River when suddenly one of them unexpectedly goes swimming. We could critique some aspects of the paddlers' preparations as it looks like the swimmer wasn't dressed particularly well for immersion, but on the other hand the rescue, such as it was, went smoothly with neither paddler panicking and the paddling partner taking charge of the situation. And apart from the clothing, both paddlers seemed well prepared.
But what struck me was how quickly a seemingly benign paddling situation could turn into a rescue situation. There's no wind, no waves, no expected surprise. Just a tree branch, and a quick moment when gravity overcomes balance. Living near The Gorge, Louise and I paddle in conditions similar to this all the time, and sometimes we take the calmness for granted. Consider this a gentle reminder to expect the unexpected.

Blue-Green Algae Bloom Confirmed At Elk/Beaver Lake Regional Park

Word up, for anyone planning to paddle at Elk Lake or Beaver Lake this week -- there's blue-green algae blooming along part of the shores. Check your launch sites!
The Capital Regional District sent out a press release today with the news, and it's copied below.


Public Service Announcement
For Immediate Release
November 7, 2014

Blue Green Algae Bloom Confirmed At Elk/Beaver Lake Regional Park

Victoria, BC - Water tests conducted at Elk/Beaver Lake Regional Park have tested positive for blue-green algae bloom. Visitors are advised to avoid areas near the visible blue-green sheen, which appears as surface scum. Pet owners are advised to keep animals on a leash and prevent them from drinking or swimming in either lake.

-30-

For further information, please contact:

Andy Orr, Senior Manager
CRD Corporate Communications

Tel: 250.360.3229
Cell: 250.216.5492

Jeanette Mollin, Administrative Clerk
Visitor Services and Community Development
Capital Regional District / Regional Parks
490 Atkins Avenue, Victoria, BC V9B 2Z8
T: 250-360-3341 F: 250-478-5416
www.crd.bc.ca/parks

Flying Kayak

Okay...so only it flew straight to the ground....
At least he has a PFD on. Not that it helped, because there's no water.
Needless to say, don't try this at home. Or anywhere.

Neighbours

There are all kinds of neighbours around here. We meet the nicest people when we're out in our kayaks! We are also lucky enough to meet plenty of animal and plant neighbours as we noodle around the shorelines and cross to some of the islands. Now I've been lucky enough to find a website called VictoriaDiving made by another kind of neighbour: one who goes diving along these shores. Sometimes he takes his gear in an inflatable motorboat and goes out to some of the same places we go.
It's interesting to see his perspective on these shoreline places, as he ducks under the water and down far deeper than I though most local divers went on solo dives. Check out his website -- there's a map showing places he's been. You can look on Kayak Yak at posts of places we've been, such as Telegraph Cove, and then go to his website and find posts he's made about the same place.
Neighbours can be grand.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Because you haven't paddled until you've paddled in a pumpkin.
Check out the video below:

River Kayaker Video Rescue

A neat little video is making the rounds today. It shows a river kayaker with his boat jammed in the rocks, and unfortunately, his head is under water. But with the help of his friends, he's pulled out of his kayak and a few steps to shore.
Yes, I said "steps." The incident took place in a rocky rapids, looking about Class 2 or 3, which translates as water that is dropping about 2 feet + over and through rocks that make it challenging enough to be fun for experienced whitewater kayakers. There would be deep pools and shallow places all through those rapids.
You can see the video here on a news site. One of the paddlers had a helmet camera and recorded the quick rescue as it was happening.
It's worth saying again: Be prepared! Practise your rescue techniques. There's nothing like a little practise with your tow ropes or wet exit and re-entry skills to give your body the confidence you need if a small emergency happens -- and safety practise can be one of the things that helps keep an incident from becoming a big emergency. That's what happened this summer when Heather and I were able to help a tired swimmer (read it on Kayak Yak here)! And safety practise can be fun and games, as it was when Mike Jackson taught a towing workshop.

Life Boat Launch

I hope everyone had their seatbelts fastened....
Check out the video:

Kayakers' news from CHEK

Two local stories of note for paddlers on Vancouver Island, reported on CHEK news:


-a paddler from Campbell River is missing. His vehicle has been found on Quadra Island, and his kayak and gear have turned up on another island nearby. You can read this story and see the CHEK video here. This case is a reminder for all of us, especially those who paddle alone, to have a ground crew. It's also a good idea when parking your vehicle to leave a brief note on the front seat telling your paddle plans and when you plan to return.


-a cargo vessel loaded with fossil fuels was drifting off Haida Gwai, but is now under tow. It appears disaster may have been averted, for now. You can read this story here.


Update: as of Saturday night, the tow line had broken and the vessel was drifting again towards the rocky shore. Then the vessel was taken under tow again. On Sunday the 19th, the vessel was being towed for repair. Stay tuned to your news services to hear the next stage in not only this particular vessel's story, but the ongoing story of How Fuel Tankers Affect The Coastline. As small boat users, this is our story too and there are many ways we can participate.

Paddlenorth - a book by author and paddler Jennifer Kingsley

Conservationist and paddler Jennifer Kingsley has a new book being launched this fall, called Paddlenorth. Published by Greystone Books with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, this book tells the story of Kingsley's 54-day paddling adventure on the Back River in Canada's north. This is a terrific choice for a gift to give the paddler you love.

“A perilous journey through an unforgiving landscape. A wild adventure that sweeps you up in its wake. Jennifer Kingsley is a wicked paddler and a beautiful writer.”–Andrew Westoll, author of The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary

“In the tradition of great exploration literature, Jennifer Kingsley examines both the wilderness she paddles through and the wilderness within. An engrossing story that illuminates the north and the nature of friendship.”—Don Gillmor, author of Mount Pleasant

 Kingsley will be reading from her book at the following free events in Vancouver and Victoria BC in the next few days:

October 19, Vancouver, B.C.

Afternoon in-store signing at Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC). 130 West Broadway Vancouver, British Columbia V5Y 1P3
12:00-2:00pm
Come by to say hello, talk about paddling, check out some muskox fur and meet the author.

October 19, Vancouver, B.C.

Evening presentation at Book Warehouse, 4118 Main Street at 25th Ave.
6:30-8:00 p.m.
Free admission.
Join author and naturalist Jennifer Kingsley for stories and a sample of her new book, Paddlenorth. Meet other people who love travel writing. Say hi to Jenny.

October 20, Vancouver, B.C.

Evening presentation at Mountain Equipment Co-0p (MEC). 130 West Broadway Vancouver, British Columbia V5Y 1P3
6:00-7:00 p.m.
Free admission.
Join author and naturalist Jennifer Kingsley for slides, stories and a sample of her new book, Paddlenorth. Meet other paddlers, talk about adventure, get inspired.

October 22, Victoria, B.C.

Evening presentation at the Victoria Public Library, Central Branch, 735 Broughton Street.
7:00-8:30pm 
Join Jennifer Kingsley, author and naturalist, on her Arctic voyage as she recounts stories, shows photos, reads select passages and answers questions. Come and say hi!

Old-timey Kayak Racing

Here's an old, and short, British Pathé newsreel showing a canoe and kayak racing in Ausburg, Germany from 1957. The first event shown is apparently the Double-scull Canadian Canoe race. Check out the embed below:

A Thanksgiving Pumpkin Paddle Centrepiece

Now this is how to make a centrepiece out of a pumpkin for a paddler's festive gathering! Never saw a stand-up-paddleboard carved out of coconut before this...

Canoe Launch Fail

Because if you can't sink your canoe in three seconds, what's the point?

Check out the video below:

Kayaker Rescued Off Oak Bay

Last night, a high school-aged foreign exchange student was rescued after her kayak paddle off Oak Bay went awry. According to this report, a couple walking along Willows Beach saw the girl's shoes and kayak dolly along the shore. When the couple returned from their walk, they noticed the items were still there. They alerted authorities, and then jumped in their boat located at a nearby marina. After about an hour of searching, the couple found the girl on rocks located between Willows Beach and Discovery Island. She apparently got caught up in the currents, but was able to steer towards nearby rocks, where she landed. She was cold and embarrassed, but otherwise unhurt.
The report doesn't say exactly where she ended up, but my guess would be that she came ashore in the Chain Islands. A beautiful place to paddle, and we have many times, but the currents can be tricky. I haven't checked what they were doing last night, but with a full moon tonight, I'd imagine that they were running hard. But thankfully, all turned out okay. Hopefully, she'll be a little more careful next time out, or the story may not have the same happy ending.

Next Time, Consider a Kayak

Long-distance runner Reza Baluchi, who has in the past run around the Unites States and bicycled across nearly 60 countries, attempted a new long-distance endeavour last week by attempting to walk the almost 1700 km from Florida to Bermuda. He was going to walk across the ocean in a homemade "hydro pod," propelling it by running and pushing it with his arms. Think of it as a human hamster wheel.
Last Wednesday after only travelling about 130 km, the US Coast Guard checked on him, but let him continue, but by this past Saturday, he had made little further progess and activated his rescue beacon. He was rescued by the Coast Guard, exhausted but apparently otherwise uninjured.
Here's a video of the hydro pod in action:

Here's part of the Coast Guard rescue video:

Pierre Trudeau on Canoe Travel

What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other travel. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau
quoted from his famous 1944 essay
"Exhaustion and Fulfillment: The Ascetic in a Canoe"
which appears on the Canoe.ca website

When Streets Become Rivers

It rained so hard in parts of France on Monday that a couple of kayakers took their boat to the city streets. The city of Montpellier received 25 cm of rain in a three hour period, about half of what the city normally receives in a year. With streets turned into rivers, a kayak might seem like a sensible way to get around. How successful were they? Check out the video:


A bystander also shot a quick clip:

The Drone of Orcas

Drones are just about everywhere, and I don't mean just the drone of me snoring.
Last August, researchers from the Vancouver Aquarium and NOAA used a custom-built hexacopter to photograph and track the local resident orca pods. Researches were trying to determine how low salmon stocks affect the health of the local resident orcas. The locals, which are considered endangered, stick to diet of salmon, while transient orcas will go after seals, dolphins or whatever's around, and so the locals' health depend on the health of the salmon stocks. If salmon stocks are low, the locals will go hungry. It's hard to tell if an orca is getting thin with only a side view from a boat as an orca will only appear skinny from the side once it is serverly malnourished. But from above, it is much easier to get a sense of an orca's health, particularly whether or not it is getting enough to eat as its girth is easier to make out from above.
Using their drone and looking down from above, the researchers followed some of the northern resident orcas to get a sense of their health. The good news is that because of a large chinook run, most of the northern residents looked robust and well-fed; the bad news was that some of the orcas were not doing as well and two of them disappeared and were presumed to have died during the course of the study.
You can read the whole story here (and look at some cool pictures as well), and you can also check out the embedded video below:

Lincoln Street Kayak and Canoe Museum

A couple of weeks ago, Louise and I found ourselves travelling through Portland, Oregon. Even though we were following a map, somehow we zigged when we should have zagged, and ended up where we didn't want to be, but in a happy happenstance we stumbled upon the Lincoln Street Kayak and Canoe Museum.
The museum was closed -- it's only offically open Wednesday evenings or by appointment -- but we could see through the window that there were at least a couple of dozen old skin on frame Inuit-styled kayaks. In fact, the museum houses almost 60 full-size kayaks, as well as nearly 50 models. Most of the full-size kayaks are replicas, but there are a couple of originals in the collection, and it's touted as being one of the world's largest collections of traditional Arctic-styled kayaks. Sadly, we couldn't wait around for opening time, but maybe next time we are down that way, we will make sure we have a Wednesday evening free to stop by.
The Musuem is on Facebook -- check out its page for photos of the collection.

coureurs de bois

Remember learning about the coureurs de bois and the fur trade in Canadian History class? Here's an image of their voyageur canoes from the Canadiana website.

Their caption reads:
The Spring Brigade leaves Montreal for the West
Franklin Arbuckle
Reproduced with the permission of the Hudson’s Bay Company From the HBC Corporate Collection

When many fur traders traveled together, it was called a “brigade.” The brigades would leave in the spring and return in the fall, their canoes heavy with furs.

And here's a comment from an anonymous coureur-de-bois quoted by a Hudson's Bay Co. historian:

For 24 years I was a light canoeman. I required but little sleep, but sometimes got less than I required. No portage was too long for me; all portages were alike. My end of the canoe never touched the ground 'til I saw the end of it. Fifty songs a day were nothing to me. I could carry, paddle, walk and sing with any man I ever saw... I pushed on - over rapids, over cascades, over chutes; all were the same to me. No water, no weather ever stopped the paddle or the song... There is no life so happy as a voyageur's life; none so independent; no place where a man enjoys so much variety and freedom as in the Indian country. Huzza, huzza pour le pays sauvage!

Ben and the boat with mussels

Another note from Ben, who has spent the late summer exploring rivers and streams in the Okanagan valley, when not picking fruit. He reports that Fish and Wildlife officers have politely asked him to not fish for salmon this year because the spawn is depleted and they want the ceremonial allowances not to come up short. Any first nations traditional harvest feeds the community in lots of ways, Ben knows, and so do at least some fisheries workers -- at least enough of them to actively recommend he eat trout instead.

Ben went on to add:

ben: I met a couple modern day vikings who want to kayak the northwest passage. A Finnish guy and his half Aleutian wife.

We met when an American tourist pulled in at a gas station pulling a boat that had mussels on the hull. We had a short talk with him.

 me:  mussels on the hull? Bad boat hygiene!

That's how zebra mussels end up in lakes!

 ben:  precisely. We mentioned the concern, the extreme fines levied over such problems, and his licenseplate. The couple gave him a card for a local marina service that cleans and inspects. 

Glad to hear that Ben and his viking friends were good neighbours, with practical advice for the dirty boat owner. It's so important for us small boat users to clean our boats well. There's really no excuse for letting our boats carry kingsfoil weeds or zebra mussels into all the lakes we visit, y'know?

Whale on a SUP

Okay, so the whale is not on an SUP, but a guy off of Malibu was on an SUP when he was overtaken by a couple of whales. I'm thinking humpbacks, but what do I know from whales? And of course, he had a GoPro with him. Check out the video below:

Whales go where they want, of course. But how close is too close?
Fisheries and Environment Canada recommend that vessels (and that includes kayaks) should stay a minimum 100 metres away from whales. Don't approach from in front or behind, only from the sides.
What you should do if you see a whale? You can get more info from Be Whale Wise.

Over The Sambaa Deh Falls

A kayaking couple from Colorado think they may have been the first to kayak over the Sambaa Deh Falls in the Northwest Territories last month. Leif and Natalie Anderson did a whitewater kayaking tour of the NWT and northern BC this summer, but describe their plunge down Sambaa Deh, a Class V, as a highlinght. Leif told the CBC, ​"It sort of drops into this mini gorge that's about 10 feet deep, 10 feet wide and you have to navigate a couple of bends there — a couple of S-turn kind of moves. Then it speeds up and opens up into this big fan and there's one particular spot that we wanted to hit on the righthand side there and you just drop into the fan and speed up."
A CBC report is embedded below and is worth watching, if only for Leif's awesome mullet.

Post by Leif and Natalie.

Keep an eye out for a whale!

Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre posted this important news yesterday -- kayakers and others be alert on the water:

Alert for anyone on the water around the SW end of Vancouver Island today. A humpback whale is entangled in fishing gear and looks to be in terrible condition. Call the DFO Incident Reporting Line at 1-800-465-4335 to report where you see it and when.

CBC reports: German kayakers reach Bering Sea from Hay River

Bernie spotted this news story on the CBC, reporting that during this summer a pair of German kayakers have made an epic journey from Hay River in the Northwest Territories to the Alaskan shore of the Bering Sea. You can read about their trip here, on the CBC website.

The young men launched on May 14 at Hay River on Great Slave Lake, paddled down the Mackenzie River to the Gwich'in community of Tsiigehtchic at the point where the Arctic's Red River joins the Mackenzie. They then did a 160-kilometre portage through the Richardson Mountain pass to Fort Yukon. Once on the Yukon River, it was all downstream to the coast.
(and now it's time to ask: what did you do on your summer vacation? Suddenly my day paddling on the South Saskatchewan seems so tame :)

This map is from the article on the CBC website. Support your CBC!

Kudos to Janosh Hagen and Jan Kruger! They're high school friends who learned kayaking in order to make this trip. And get this -- not only did they not take longer to complete the journey than expected, they finished ten days ahead of their plans. I don't know what they ate, but I bet it was high-energy food.

The Hurricane Riders: The Art of the Skook

The Hurricane Riders just dropped a new short film. (That's how the kids today say it, right? Dropped?)
Anyway, The Riders were out at the world-famous Skookumchuk tidal race earlier this year and filmed some of their rides on the wave.
Check it out embedded below.

A call for Citizen Scientists that suits paddlers well!

Louise spotted this call for volunteer Citizen Scientists, and passed it along to me. It will be of particular interest to paddlers living along Canada's west coast and Haida Gwai, in communities like Hartley Bay.
InFORM is a non-governmental organization of universities, groups, Health Canada, and citizens gathering data on the radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan during 2011. They're listed on their website as 

Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring (InFORM) Network: 

A collaborative radiation monitoring network to determine and communicate environmental risks for Canada’s Pacific and Arctic Oceans from the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident

I'll just add the note here, if the word "radiation" is giving you the willies, that everything I've heard (from newspapers, science journals, and the University of Victoria) says that while some radiation from Fukushima did reach Canada, it was only in very small amounts, measured and tracked. This call for volunteer Citizen Scientists is part of a program to keep gathering water samples to test. 
It's a great thing to know that our scientists are continuing to measure the tiny amounts of Cesium that drifted across the Pacific. There's not enough radiation to be a threat to our health, so we paddlers can take to the water with confidence.

Shark vs Kayak

Earlier this month, a kayak with two young women in it was attacked by a great white shark off Plymouth, Massachusetts. The shark rose up underneath the kayak, tossing them into the water. According to a report from KFOR:

The two teen girls were in separate kayaks about 110 yards off shore when they saw the fin of the shark. The next thing they knew, the shark’s teeth were just inches away from them.
“We were just talking and paddling. And I look over to talk to her and it came completely out of the water and got the bottom of the boat and flipped her over and knocked my kayak completely over,” said Ida Parker, kayak attacked by shark.
“I saw at least four feet of its head. Four feet of it came up out of the water,” said Ida.
The shark went after Ida and her friend who were out kayaking.
“It bit through the boat, there are bite marks all the way through the bottom of the kayak,” said Ida.

A neighbour heard screaming and called 911. Fortunately, the girls suffered nothing more than a good scare, while their kayak suffered small scratches and holes. One hole, pictured above by the Massachusetts State Marine Fisheries, suggests an exploratory bite by a great white, according to experts. A great white was widely known to be in the area, and the women had decided to paddle out and check the local seal colony, a decision they now admit probaby wasn't the wisest with a great white prowling around.
Apparently, the shark hung around the area for at least a few more days, and it appears to not have developed a taste for plastic.
More pictures are here.