NEWS FROM THE PADDLING WORLD
Fight Predators with Bare Hands Last October, a kayaker fought off a two-metre great white shark with her paddle. Linda White- hurst, 52, was paddling her sea kayak near the Australian resort town of Byron Bay when the shark lunged and knocked her into the water. “I just kept punching, punching, punching,” with my kayak blade until it swam away, she said. Meanwhile, last August a 31-year-old solo kay- aker fought off a wolf attack. He was camped on a remote island near Bella Bella, B.C., when he was attacked by a hungry, aging wolf while setting up his tent. He put the wolf into a headlock and dragged it down the beach to his kayak, took the knife from his PFD and repeatedly stabbed the animal. Te bleeding wolf wandered back into the forest. Te kayaker summoned help from a local fishing lodge over his radio but didn’t want to be identified, concerned the news “would only give wolves a bad image.”
An Eight-Week Guided Expedition A new guided expedition called “Te Big One” will be paddling all of the Canadian North Shore of Lake Superior in one summer. Te trip starts at Pigeon River, west of Tunder Bay, and fin- ishes at Sault Ste. Marie. Te trip is broken into eight weeklong sections so guests can choose to paddle any section or put them all back-to-back for one continuous expedition. Doing the whole trip costs $7,560.
www.naturallysuperior.com.
The Amazing $17,000 Flotsam Recently, sea kayaking hit the mainstream press when increasing numbers of paddlers started congregating in San Francisco’s Mc- Covey Cove to catch Barry Bonds’ home run balls from Oakland’s AT&T Park. Tey es- pecially hoped to catch Bonds’ 756th, which would break the previous record set by Hank Aaron. Leading the plastic navy was one Larry Ellison, a 56-year-old computer software en- gineer who, in 2004, caught two historically significant Bonds home runs and sold one of them for $17,000. Not bad for a piece of flot- sam—or would that be jetsam?
Kayaks with Corkscrews? Confluence Watersports, the makers of Per- ception, Dagger and Wilderness Systems, has a new CEO, Sue Rechner, who is the former president of Victorinox Swiss Army, Inc. Cus- tomers anticipate kayaks with built-in twee- zers and bottle openers.
Man Floats for 5 Hours A kayaker was rescued after spending five hours floating in the sea near Auckland, New Zea- land. Te 20-year-old man was fishing from his kayak when a gust of wind flipped him and his kayak drifted away. Attempting to swim to shore, he was still 2.5 kilometres away when beach lifeguards spotted him and came to his rescue. Tey said his lifejacket saved his life.
www.adventurekayakmag.com 21
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