WATERLINES
SERENITY NOW, INSANITY LATER. PHOTO: FRANCIS LÉPINE/
BIOSPHEREPHOTOGRAPHIE.CA
SURVIVAL IN THE CITY The insider’s guide to your urban paddling potential
IT’S NOT EASY being a paddler in the city. Expensive real estate, limited boat storage, premium parking, traffic congestion and polluted waters conspire to make metropolitan kayakers feel like they’re paddling against the current. Here are seven secrets to city survival, gained from years of experience battling the worst urban woes.
GET A WATERFRONT PAD
Easier said, right? But waterfront city living gives you the best of both worlds— urban convenience out the back door, watery wildness out the front. Walk your kayak down to the dock for a sunrise paddle, or size up surf conditions from the kitchen window. To accomplish this it helps to lower your standards. I managed waterfront liv- ing as a student by renting rooms in dilapidated houses, subletting, housesitting and moving indiscriminately between basements, garrets and laundry closets. My bed was a Therm-a-Rest on shipping pallets, but I lived in some of the Pa- cific Rim’s priciest oceanfront ‘hoods for less than $400 a month.
GET YOUR BOAT A WATERFRONT PAD
The next best thing to living on the water is to park your boat there. The 50-odd cubic feet required to store a kayak is a slice of waterfront that almost anyone can afford.
36 | ADVENTURE KAYAK
Just be prepared to get in line. My local paddling club has been full for years. Every spring I get an email from someone who’s de-cluttering the waitlist, ask- ing what skills I might have to volunteer if I were chosen to join, which hints at a suspiciously biased selection process. I promised to wash and wax everyone’s kayaks, and attached a swimsuit photo, but I haven’t heard back.
DITCH YOUR CAR
Like all booming cities, my town is in a state of perpetual gridlock, construction and repair. The road to my local put-in has been closed for more than a year. Driving to the water means running a gauntlet of street closures, flag-persons, single-lane bridges and traffic jams that crop up around various special events and seasonal attractions. I pass a Cirque du Soleil show, a bustling Chinese grocer and a waterfront pool bar, capacity 3,000, where Justin Bieber likes to go when he’s in town.
At the beach, I have to fight the other three million city residents for park- ing. One time, the only available space was along a strip of vacant and over- grown waterfront. Forced to portage through a network of shrubby singletrack, I encountered an unusual number of deeply tanned and extraordinarily friendly middle-aged men before reaching the water. Had I sorted out waterfront storage as per section two, I could have biked to the water in 10 minutes. Until I get into that paddling club, I’m shopping for a kayak trailer for my bicycle.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84