Sea Breeze and Biz

Rolling Rolling Rolling

Under water shooting is a new trend in our paddling club.

It also enable  you to follow what's going on below water while doing an Eskimo Roll.

here is me:

The Patagonia Expedition

They are done now, and they had a great trip.
Yossale, On and Roi, paddlers from our club (actually Yossale is our instructor) just finished a great expedition in Patagonia.
They paddled 1800 km in great 65 days. and all their story is told in their blog.
It was great following them as Hadas was updating it when they couldn't.
I would like to thank these guys for sharing the reality of "our own" dreams.

here are some photos they took. I envy.

Power Plant white water

Yesterday was a very cold morning.The easterly winds blowing in wintertime here in Israels can freeze your ass.
The Mediterranean in our end does not suffer from tidal differences so much but that morning it was pretty low allowing us much of beach space for warm-up exercise and some fooling around before going into the water.
We paddled to the back of the Hadera Power Plant, directly into the cooling water outlet. These cooling water are pretty warm when they get out and the Jaquzy  stream you get is fun to play with.

The video below is thanks to Steve, our official documentor.  

720 feet below sea level

That was an awesome trip!
21 kayakers, 21 boats, some booze, lots of food and plenty of high mood just circumnavigating the Sea Of Galilee (Kineret).
We stared at Kibutz Genosar on Friday morning, paddling along the northern side of the lake.  The strong easterly wind that we had from the beginning simply calmed down as we were having a break on shore (and feeding ourselves, of course). We then continued and entered the upper Jordan river (or a stream, just to set expectations). struggling with paddling upstream for what I can only estimate by 3-4 km till GESHER (bridge)  ARIK.  That was tough paddling for med kayaker like me not used to currents. Actually I finally managed using intensive meditation thinking about the rolls of palms and almonds that I have in the kayak. At the first stop by the bridge we took them out and they were by far more energetic and tasty at that spot.
Apparently, all that we paddled for an hour upstream was great fun sliding downstream at about 10 minutes and we were back in the calm Kineret exploring the eastern bank.
It was very pleasant paddling south through another coffee break  with the sun setting above the city of Tiberius straight to Kibutz Ein Gev where we spent the night.
Evening was also great, great company of great people and good mood. Few of us were amazing the crowd with some dancing steps... (Not me).
   The next day was about the southern part of the lake. It was somehow cloudy but with very 'artistic' sky. The lake was calm. The stories of Gal that made short interesting lectures about the history and stories of the place.  Tales from the Roman age, the new testimony and the 19th century made you understand why people fell in love with this place all along the history.
We landed back in Genosar just before dark and I must admit I found it hard to finish the trip so I locked my car keys in the car. the guys that stayed with me waiting for someone to break into the car made it a great Finale to this great weekend.
Can't wait to the next trip... 

More fun photos taken by Yaniv.

and more taken by Steve.

        

The winter is here

The winter came for a visit last weekend.
The paddling on friday was still somehow reasonable but checkout Steve's post about Saturday's outing.

Generally it means less rolling and more weather gear during the outings.
I personally willing to give up some outings as long as we will get enough rain here in Israel and the Sea Of Galili will fill up again.

We are planning a paddling around the Sea of Galili on late December. It will be a fun 2 days which I promise to report on along with photos.

Our Paddling club

I think we are one of the most documented paddling clubs there are. The Optimist paddling club.
I'm sorry that I had to miss it but at early November there was the annual Kayaking Symposium held on the club lead by 3 of the most appreciated instructors of the world.

One of them, Derrick, which is also a well known kayaking blogger, made an impressive bunch of posts about his Israeli adventure and  made a very nice slideshow  that really represents what paddling in Israel is and the great atmosphere we have down there on the Sdot-Yam beach.

Thanks Darrick for cupturing these moments.

Friday Morning Surf

We had a great paddling on Friday morning.
It began with long paddle to Givat Olga which was great and on the way back we stopped at the 'rock' to catch some surf. I wasn't planning to surf that day but the waves were so... PERFECT that I couldn't help it.
The 'rock' is a spot of maybe 30 meter which is good to get the surf on and we were about a dozen kayaks there which is pretty crowded. Some of us... (like me) were breaking the club security rule of wearing a helmet and I was a bad enough boy to not pay attention to other surfers around.
I think I managed to get both Hadas and Steve (our instructors) worried and got  some of their polite 'comments' about that.
Actually, I can understand their worry,  as I was an instructor myself and I know the danger of kayak riding a wave. It can get very dangerous.
Anyhow... It was great fun. See the video Steve  created.

BTW: the water are getting very hot and get up to 30 degrees. the see is filling up with Jelly Fish.

Back On The Water... (and below)

OK, Days are warming up here in Israel and the sea was calling me.
It was also the doctor that said that I better be back into some physical activity, as well as my own feeling that I badly need it.

So... I did the step and officially joined the Optimist paddling club as a member. The club is providing ordinary outings almost every morning of the week as well as more late paddling during the weekend. They are also organizing cool paddling trips in Israel and abroad (Turkey, Cyprus, Greece and Alaska). Above all, there is also a very nice group of people that like the paddling activity and the sea.

This week was a dead calm, and during the Wednesday morning outing, Steve  took some pictures of me, so that's the one above.

On Thursday we had a Paddling skills session which Steve covered here.
And...

This is me, practicing Eskimo Roll.
Still have a lot to practice, too much water went through my nostrils.

Bottom line, this will be a fun summer.

Kayak surfing

I once wrote about Kayak surfing, but did not have good visuals for that.
Here is a post by Steve including a video with that PURE FUN!!!

"The Rock" in Sdot Yam, with post-storm swells is a ideal place for long kayaks surfing.

Brown water paddling

Last Friday I joined that optimist Kayaking club for a nice paddling in the Yarkon.
The Yarkon is a river, no... a stream, no... a... something with water. crossing Tel Aviv.
We started by the sea, next to Riding power plant and paddled upstream till we could not go farther.
it was about 2 hours of a very nice paddling.

Here are some photos

I'd like also to take the opportunity to introduce Steve and his blog.

Steve is a very active member in the paddling club, he builds Kayaks, and on his free time he is a dentist. So.. watch out with comments on his blog.