The 35th Vogalonga was held on May 31st, on the Sunday following Ascension as tradition dictates. The Vogalonga is a 30km non-competitive “race” through the city of Venice and the lagoon. It starts a 9 from St. Mark’s with a cannon shot, and proceeds around Sant’Elena, past the islands of Certosa, Le Vignole, Sant’Erasmo, San […]
April 25th is the day of St. Mark, the patron saint of Venice since his relics were taken to the city in AD 828. I haven’t heard of any official celebration, maybe because the day coincides with the national celebration of the liberation of Italy after WWII. Anyway, Marco (not San Marco, just Marco 🙂 […]
Franceso and i had planned to paddle to Cala Goloritzé in the Golfo di Orosei yesterday, and we got up early and set off fetching kayaks at a local camping where Francesco keeps par of his gear, and then on the road to Santa Maria Navarrese. We launched in calm weather, a force 2 scirocco […]
I arrived in Cardedu in the afternoon on Saturday, and I was hardly in the door at Francesco’s before he declared that we were going fishing in kayak that afternoon. It is like that at Francesco’s house. It is very hard not to end up paddling most of the time. We went to a local […]
The Vogalonga is a celebration of Venice and its rowing traditions, and in part also a protest against the invasion of the city by motorised vessels.
Tomorrow is Vogalonga day, and we’re on our way to bed so we can get up in time for the start at 9 in the St. Mark’s basin. Today we’ve had a group of Vogalonga participants on a tour on Venice in kayak. We were three Sardinians, three from Puglia, one from Bologna, four Frenchmen […]
On Sunday the 30th of March we went paddling along the spectacular coast of Golfo di Orosei, where I also paddled last year. A 50km stretch of coastline is part of the national reserve of Gennargentu-Golfo di Orosei, which means that here isn’t a road or a house to see in the reserve. I paddled […]
Each year Kajakhotellet.dk organises a Santa Lucia procession in kayak to collect funds for Amnesty International. Besides having a charitable purpose—each paddler paid €15 to AI to participate—its also a good excuse to get to paddle a bit off season. We were around 100 paddlers today. I saw one or two television crew on land, […]
Today I went paddling in the lagoon with my Venetian friend Marco and his friend Damien from Padova. We didn’t have any particular plans, just paddle and have fun. Here’s Damien in his rusty old kayak And here’s Marco in the Current Design Solstice that Wendy is going to paddle around Sardinia (Marco has a […]
Today’s paddle me took to the Giudecca of Venice. It used to be an industrial area with housing for working class families, there’s quite a bit of run down houses and abandoned factories and shipyards. New houses on the south side of the Giudecca. Older, but nice looking houses in the Giudecca. Abandonded shipyard buildings […]
Today’s paddle became rather special, for a number of reasons. I started in the afternoon after a morning’s hard work at the internet café. Their coffee is appallingly good, but paddling need to be done. First thing, I encountered the first paddler ever in the lagoon, except of course Marco who always complains that nobody […]
I had the new Skim Distance out for a short paddle today. The colours of the boat are beautiful, but the weather was a bit dark and cloudy. That’ll be better in Sicily and Sardinia 🙂 Each time I try the Distance, I’m surprised how manoeuvrable it is, in spite of its considerable length.
After the Stockenträffen in Orust, Sweden, Wendy and I went to Göteborg with Sara and Johan from Escape Kayak Centre. Wendy has agreed to do her Newfoundland presentation at Escape on Tuesday evening, so we had two whole days there. Dubside who had been touring southern Sweden with Escape in the weeks up to the […]
Today I paddled home from the beach park. Almost as usual, somebody had taken my kayak for use in a beginners course at Kajakhotellet, so I had to settle for something else. First I laid my greedy eyes on a Skim Distance which I haven’t tried yet, but then someone pretending to be a buying […]
Today’s paddle took me a bit around the strait of Øresund. I started at the shop, Kajakhotellet.dk, and first I just planned to do on of the usual tours in the vicinity, but the sea was so calm and the sun was shining from a clear sky, so I changed plans and paddled to Saltholm, […]
Every Thursday my local kayak shop has a come-along paddle, just for a few hours after work. It is free for all, but yesterday we were only five, two coaches, two aspirant coaches and a girl that helps in the shop. We took one of the common trips, to the local lighthouse and back, which […]
A few weeks ago we got our Reed Paddle Suits, and we had to try them immediately. The weather was nice and calm – there wasn’t a wind blowing and wave height were to be measured in centimeters – so we decided to skip over the island of Saltholm a few kilometres off the coast […]