About a month and a half ago I ran the right side of Sunset Falls on the East Fork Lewis much too aggressively and ended up punching out past the aerated water at the base of the 20 foot drop. I quickly tucked to protect my spine, with the unfortunate consequence that I brought my...
"A free chiropractic adjustment"Continue readingCategory: Trips and Adventures
12 Hours in a Drysuit: Just Another Day in Paradise
Three days ago something unusual happened on the Oregon Coast, it snowed, and then the temperature dropped to twenty degrees. The skies cleared and I knew that with the sun so low in the sky, every moment of this day was going to be beautiful. I didn’t want to miss any of it so...
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Happy Holidays: My From-Scratch Pumpkin Pie Recipe, Enjoy
Everyone has a secret life, something surprising, something other than the things we are known for. Me? I bake pies. Not just ordinary pies, I bake really good pies, pies that elicit slightly sexual mmmm’s and oh-my-gods from those lucky enough to plunge a fork into one. I use a simple butter crust, fresh local ingredients, not...
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Black Friday Bargain: A Very Special Cape Falcon Kayak Shopping Day
This festive season I was fortunate enough to suffer a wisdom tooth abscess and for the last few weeks holiday libations consisted of antibiotics, vicodin, more antibiotics, and finally oxycodone. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say that I alternated between worrying that the painful infection would kill me, and hoping that it...
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Surf, Salmon, Sunsets, and Smiles: A Couple of Beautiful October Days Boating with Jeff and Cate
After teaching at the Lumpy Waters Symposium in early October, my friends Jeff and Cate stopped by the Cape Falcon barn for a visit. I checked the swell, the weather, and the river levels, none optimal, but all doable. I think we could have some fun. We loaded up the boats and the fishing and crabbing...
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Dirk Catches a Wave: A Quick Morning Session before heading back to Newfoundland
It’s common for me to host students from all over the world, but less common that any students arrive here with a rock solid roll and a thirst for open water. When they do, if the surf cooperates, I try to show them a good time. Dirk came here from Newfoundland to build a boat, but...
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Just a few photos of my friend Pat paddling on the coastline in front of my house. Someday I will actually take some photos of the surf part of things!...
Stalking the Wild Oyster: A Week of Skin Kayak Touring with Traditional Skills Expert Kiliii Yu
Here on the Oregon coast I spend so much time buried up to my eyeballs in foam that it’s easy to forget that my sea kayaks actually have other uses besides surfing. Left to my own devices I would do nothing but work compulsively and surf. So when my buddy Kiliii asked me to...
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Skipping work, what I did today instead
Oh, how I wish I could have worked for me when I was in my early twenties. This morning when I went to pick up Greg and Diana, I made the mistake of passing by the ocean, five minutes later I was waxing poetic in their kitchen. “We’ve got a lot to do today, so...
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Crash Landing the F2 at Arch Cape
“Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” The important thing to point out here is that things didn’t feel right from the beginning. It was a beautiful morning but for a variety of reasons Leann and I were having a hard time getting our act together to get on the water. It was 11am by the...
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Double Your Fun: Testing the New F2 Tandem Prototype on Washington’s wild Ozette Coast
Leann and I arrived at Neah Bay at 1pm the day before summer solstice. After a few hours of sorting food and packing gear we were ready to launch. 3pm might not be the best time to launch an untested kayak onto a rock studded fogbound coastline in the wind and drizzle, but we...
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Paddling with Wally around Cape Falcon
After months of high surf and freezing weather, I was ready for a change. On April 1st the swell dropped providing an easy window to get offshore. Every year holds a handful of days where the non surf savvy paddler can explore the Oregon coast. During these times I like to take friends out to...
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Tassie, week two
With twenty consecutive work days finished, I took a much needed rest and spent a couple days just staring across the harbor from Tim’s deck… Being an organic farmer myself, I really enjoyed Tim’s backyard garden. Well cared for and not too big, it rewards him and Deirdre with plenty of fresh fruit and...
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Kayak Log Race 2009
Myself and Mark have been risking life and limb clearing log jams on the North Fork of the Nehalem River, and salvaging the logs. After cutting four fat spruce logs and four smaller cedars, our attention turned to getting the logs down to where we could haul them out. I hatched the idea to host...
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Kayak Logging
What do you get when you mix gasoline, steel, water, wood, kayaks, and some seriously uncertain footing? The extreme sport of kayak logging. Over the years I’ve collected some good logs, lost some great logs, and had a lot of fun with some wild stories to tell. The pursuit of logs by kayak allows me...
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