Summer, time for adventure holidays and new paddling experiences

Summer, the time for Otimists to go travelling again. This time a group went to paddle in Croatia

They reported on a great  trip with beautiful weather, good food and wonderful views.

Meanwhile another group were exploring the colder waters of Norway

They also had a great time exploring new unfamiliar places  and dealing with the cold water and weather

It sure looks like a great place for kayaking

Meanwhile back at home  we made new Greenland paddles

Here are Ginady and Arie with their new paddles

And the rest of us kept on paddling in our local waters

We have to be careful not to clash with all the SUP paddlers

And we also have a lot of new paddlers coming to try out kayaking for the first time.
And that`s not all because at the end of July a group of us are going paddling in Greenland.

It looks like its going to be a great summer.

making the most of what we got....optimist update

Some days we can play in the rocks along the shore 

The view of the fishing village of Jasser a Zarka, about 45 minutes north of Sdot Yam, one of our most popular routes, round trip about one and a half hours

This is the season of strong northerly winds, makes for interesting outings

The wind was too strong for most of us and so after a short while we headed back

Efrat and Motke  welcomed us to their tent on the beach with a hot coffee after our windy outing

The tent is up for the summer, all welcome to visit 

The power station still works on coal and it arrives by ship, we visit from time to time too

Going south after the beach at Olga the coast is more interesting with lots of bays and rock gardens

Avital likes challenging herself through the rocks

A nice place for breakfast, its called the Chinese bay

more rocks to play with

Some of our paddlers can really take a break

Then we had Independence day, another holiday  good for paddling

happy birthday Israel

Suddenly the weather changed and gave us some small waves

I like the name of this ship, it fits

Interesting seas

And of course there are the constant celebrations, birthdays are most common but weddings, and births are becoming more popular too, here we have a Fish and chips day to celebrate....

a new paddler, soon she will have her own kayak

Everybody loves fish and chips

Itamar got a new Greenland paddle

we practiced landing and launching in the surf too

Noam loves his new Tiderace Xtreme

Izzy is getting better in the surf with his new Zypher

Noam is also getting addicted to surf
And so as  we begin the summer  all looks good at the Optimist Kayak Club

where the sharks live = carcharhinus plumbeus

We now have  new attraction  for kayakers, its a shark safari.
 There is a place where the water is warm and shallow just south of the electric company powerplant, the warm water runoff keeps the seawater pretty warm even in winter and so I guess this is what attracts the sharks

I know that there are lots of divers who can swim around with sharks, I am definitely not one of those brave souls. Even in a kayak there is a level of tension when you look down and see this huge fish lazily gliding just a short distance from your boat. 

It,s also not so easy to get good photos , this one is from Yosi Wolfson who has been visiting them quite frequently.
They belong to the species carcharhinus plumbeus or sandbar shark said to be one of the largest in the world.
Visiting the sharks is not a club activity, in fact its prohibited, only in a private capacity and private kayak do we got out there, all at our own risk and personal responsibility. I guess thats reasonable.

how do you choose which paddle to use? or Go Greenland

There is a growing group of paddlers who are using the traditional Greenland paddle here in Israel.
It is still a very small group, but the trend is definitely growing.
We had the first Greenland festival in Israel over the last weekend, 20+ paddlers from a number of kayak clubs  gathered at our beach for a few hours of fun and games on the water with our favorite paddles.
Hopefully this will become an annual  event and the numbers of paddlers will grow.
We all had a lot of laughs and fun and even though it was a bit windy and cold at the end of the day we managed to get some rolling done as well
Here are a few pictures from the day.

 See you all again next year

breaking the Aleutian paddle

The Aleutian paddle is a pleasure to use, its comfortable, light weight and has a very nice grip on the water. It feels powerful too.
I have made 3 up to now and all of them have broken in the surf. the first one a couple of years ago while I was playing in the waves with Eli. You can see the moment of fracture in the video at 052--056. I guess there was too much pressure on the blade from coming down so hard.
So I made another and kept it our of the surf, just used it to paddle in flat water, until one day I heard the awful crack and found myself with another broken paddle. I tried to repair it with glue and screws and tape , but its still bust.

Top is the first paddle after attempted repair and it just broke again, bottom is the second paddle also attempted repair

Today I broke number 3, I have been using it for a while now and kept out of the surf

, but there were some cute waves just calling out to be surfed and off I went. As I applied power to the blade I heard that dreadful crack again and if you look at the top photo, you can see the middle paddle with a nasty crack right through the shoulder and into the loom.

So, how do I determine the problem? is it bad wood or is there something wrong with the design, maybe these paddles are not made for rough water.
Anybody got any good ideas.
The next repair will be with a carbon fiber sleeve which I have just received, but I would like to make an unbreakable paddle instead.

how do you paddle

) Heres a short video showing a few of our paddlers doing the forward stroke. See if you can spot the good or the bad bits and suggest improvements. It helps a lot to see yourself paddling on a video, then you can see just how you paddle and find out where you have to work to improve.

So many kayakers so any styles

how to paddle faster

Most of time we paddle forwards, sometimes we need to go sideways or backwards too but mostly its straight ahead.
So it makes sense to invest in getting the right technique in order to become more efficient, to use less energy and to be able to go faster when we want.
I know that there are some paddlers who are not interested in getting better or faster, that's OK too because the bottom line is it should be fun and no one should tell you how to paddle.
On the other hand there are lots of us out there who do want to improve, to get better and faster and to become more efficient paddlers.
I see beginners who join our club suddenly discover that no matter how hard they try they cant keep up with the group. Its not a matter of being stronger or more powerful, its a matter of doing it right
Some look to change their paddles, maybe a bigger blade will help go faster, maybe a wing paddle is the answer?
No its not the paddle, its the paddler and what he or she does with the paddle.

The basics are simple and can be found in many books or on the Internet, its getting them down in practice that's the hard part.
There are good exercises to teach body rotation, my favourite is touching the opposite side of your kayak with your blade before the catch, this helps you to feel how much you can twist your body while paddling.
Paddling with locked elbows is another exercise that also makes you rotate your body to get any forward motion.
Then there is the all important  "catch" when you plant your paddle blade in the water as far forward as you can before you begin to apply power.
This is probably the stage where most people fail . If you don't get your paddle in far enough forwards you waste all that tension that you have stored up in rotating your torso and end up loosing your power and energy.

The exit should also be in the right place, no need to drag your blade past your hips, practice taking it our earlier than you think.
I think its not too difficult to improve, all you need to do is try, and then keep practicing.If you think you need help just ask, there are always others happy to assist and its always a pleasure to see a good paddling style.