Tuesday, January 3, 2012

A Great Read With A Laugh Or Two

So I'm one of those people who likes to know about what I'm doing, how things work and how to develop my skills every time I get the chance to try it again. The same thing applies in my approach to kayaking and I guess you could say it is one of my "quirks" but it has got me this far in life so it must be working. 

Today we have the ability to do much of our research on the internet but sometimes you just can't beat a good old fashioned book to thumb your way through. For me, I like to read (usually on my eReader) and it's not often that a hard or soft back book captures my attention. For Christmas, Robyn gave me a book call Sea Kayaking Illustrated by John Robison and I did the old "judging a book by it's cover" thing and thought it just was another kayaking book until..... I opened it to page 6  which explains the Types of Sea Kayakers. (Amazon Preview-Look Inside)

Here the eight types of kayakers are described with artwork from the author which include The Gear Head, The Naturalist, The Baja/Belize Bum, The Fishermaniac, The Wave Hog, The Reluctant Spouse, The Fitness Guru and The Whitewater Kayaker. Reading the illustrated descriptions made me laugh and when I asked Robyn which of the eight I am there was no hesitation "Gear Head"!!! OK I'll give her that one.

Working my through each section was not only informative but I chuckled most of the way especially when I got to "Pee Kayaking" and "Making Poopies". Here the author uses 10 pages to describe the finer art of relieving yourself when in a kayak of which I hope that I don't have to do very often. If nature calls.... I'll probably be laughing during the experience thinking about this book.

Most kayakers have heard or read this wonderful illustrated book but if you haven't, take the time to pick up a copy and have a look. I'm sure you'll want to add it to your collection.

5 comments:

  1. Haven't seen the book, Mark, but will look for it. As for me, yep, probably a "Gear Head" with the addition of an HRM and a supply of GU! :)

    Speaking of gear, and I should probably know this by now, but what gps device / software do you use to produce the Google tracking map in your last posting? Thx. Duncan.

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  2. Hi Duncan, we are using Robyn's Garmin Oregon and we simply reset the tracking at the start of the paddle and stop it at the end. Any GPS that has the ability to record your track will work. As for software I am using GPS Visualizer and it is free to use at http://www.gpsvisualizer.com There is a bit of fine tuning your settings to get the colors for speed and distance but it works pretty good. Now that I have figured it out I can generate the picture in less than 10 minutes and it opens easily in Google Earth. I simply save the image and then it can be edited for cropping etc. in a Photoshop type of program. I'm still working on getting the speed legend on the picture as well.

    If you need any more info just drop a note.

    Mark

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  3. Many thanks for that, Mark. It's a great piece of software to review time on the water. I'll see if I can figure it out but good to know you're there for "tech support". Talk to you again. Duncan.

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  4. Hi Duncan,

    I have been playing around with Visualizer a bit and have managed to get the legend on the screen capture. If you send me your email address to rctestpilot@shaw.ca I'll send you a little "101" Visual with my settings etc.

    Mark

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