TRAVERSING TRAGEDY

Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement. --Mark Twain

All my friends and family know I like to kayak and paddle. However to clarify, I don't really consider myself an expert, but paddling is a very big part of life. I've guided trips, taught classes and taken classes, and have experienced many days on the water. Like many, I think about paddling daily. When I'm not paddling, I'm either writing or reading about it.

So I was not surprised when friends and coworkers asked for my take about the tragedy that happened on Lake Superior last weekend. I'm sure many of you might have had the same questions from your non-paddling friends.

The conversation went something like this.

"Did you hear about the family that died kayaking?"

Across the country as paddling gains popularity, kayaking accidents are getting more and more common. A quick Google search right now and you would see there were several kayak accidents that were reported over the Labor Day holiday.

In Florida, a family’s kayaking trip turned into a nightmare after getting lost in the dark and a medic had to leap from a helicopter to rescue them and navigate back to shore. In Iowa, rescue crews search a man whose kayak overturned in the rain-swollen Indian Creek. While in Los Angeles, authorities are investigating after a kayaker was struck and killed by a 50-foot boat in Marina del Rey.

But the biggest news of the past holiday weekend was the loss of a father and three children while kayaking on Lake Superior. It was the banner headline on every newscast and paper across the country.

Mother is the only survivor after a family of five's kayak capsizes on Lake Superior headlined CNN. 'Utter disbelief': Loyal in shock after father, 3 children die in kayaking accident, read the Wausau Daily Herald. You get the idea. With kids onboard this kayaking accident, left many including those in the paddling community as well as outside it asking how could something like this happen?

Back to the conversation with my non-paddling friend.

"It's pretty tragic," I responded almost with a loss of words. It was such horrible news in an activity that for people like me, brings so much joy and exhilaration.

"What do you think happened?" the friend asked, "Why were they out there with their kids?"

"I don't know," I said shaking my head. I immediately thought back about the time I paddled on Lake Superior just under Split Rock Lighthouse near Two Harbors, Minn. Alone in the vastness of the big lake, I have never felt so small in a kayak. I was just a speck on a giant sea ready to be squashed.

"Lake Superior is a mean animal. It's not to be taken lightly ever. It will kill you in a second if you do. I think they were overmatched. Yeah, they took their kids and I'm sure they thought were being safe and everything would be just fine. But that lake can be a killer. You need to take the utmost precautions."

I didn't want to come off callous to my friend, but I questioned their experience in their boat and mostly their judgment. I'm sure kayakers would have been cringing if they would have watched the Fryman family leaving Madeline Island in a 13 ½-foot open-top tandem kayak on a 4-mile paddle across open water to Michigan Island. The route is not often traveled by experienced paddlers because they knew the area is prone to strong winds and waves. When their kayak capsized somewhere between Stockton and Michigan islands hours later, Eric Fryman, of Loyal, Wisconsin, and his three children tried to swim to shore.

They never made it. Only his wife, the children's mother, Cari Mews-Fryman, survived.

"Some of the places that people want to go kayaking are incredibly attractive but also deceptively dangerous," Superintendent of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Bob Krumenaker, told the Star Tribune, "This particular incident happened in a place that is not often traversed by people on kayaks, and for good reason."

Across the social media pages I follow, boaters questioned the family's boat and lack of safety equipment. Sure every family member was wearing a PFD, but area outfitters also recommend that paddlers should wear proper clothing, such as wetsuits that can help protect against hypothermia and bring along emergency supplies such as food, flares and a radio.

The family's 13 ½-foot kayak seemed to draw the most ire on Twitter and Facebook. Open and sit-on-top kayaks are great for sunny days along the shore, but don't fare well against sea like elements and can fill with water and capsize.

"That family shouldn't have been on the big lake in the kayak they were in," Grand Marais, Minn., adventurer and photographer tweeted Bryan Hansel‏, "It's tragic not only in loss of life but also because it was needless. That's a very public lesson that others need to learn."

Which brings me back to their lack of good judgment. Krumenaker told the Star Tribune that the trek would have been difficult even for even the most experienced paddlers. "We want everyone who comes here to kayak to come here a second time to kayak," he said, "Knowing that the lake is dangerous, I think, is really an important part of the experience."

"Hopefully, it happens when the consequences are small," Author and kayaker Bryant Burkhardt once told me in an interview, "But every paddler I know has some story of when things went wrong. What you learn from those experiences very much determines what type of paddler you become. For me, the important part was to always improve my judgment. That’s what makes a good paddler in my eyes: someone who honestly appraises their own skills, whether high or low; someone who thinks through their decisions and understands risk vs. reward; someone who understands that just because everything worked out, in the end, it doesn’t mean good decisions were made in the beginning."

The conversation with my friend ended up like this.

"I've been out on Lake Superior and San Francisco Bay. The ocean and big lakes can be pretty amazing, but on the other hand can feel really intimidating. Maybe, that's why I prefer rivers."

OVER THE BOW: LAKE TAHOE

 

I have kayaked bigger lakes by far. Under Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior, Lake of the Wood on the border of U.S. and Canada and into sea caves along Lake Michigan in Door County Wisconsin.  All of those lakes are massive in size.  At their edge, you look out into a sea swell as far as you can see. The horizon falls off into waves. However, at the Lake Tahoe, you look across to see the gleaming Sierra Nevada Mountains raising from its blue depths and feel the majesty of the place. American writer, Mark Twain described the thoughts we all must experience when seeing the lake for the first time or one hundredth.

  "...at last the Lake burst upon us—a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft full three thousand feet higher still! ... As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords."

You will need waterproof pocket Thesaurus to come up with all the different types of color blue you will see when paddling around the lake. Its cobalt color was long credited to the unusual clarity of the water, however surprising new research suggests that the real explanation lies with algae that live in the lake.

“The result was totally unexpected, since we all expected that clarity and blueness of the lake is correlated,” Dr. Shohei Watanabe, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis, told The Huffington Post, “Clarity is mainly controlled by fine inorganic sediments but blueness is mainly controlled by algal populations.”
Using help from NASA, Wantanabe, measured the lake’s blueness and then combined this “blueness index” with measurements of a Secchi disk, a white disk commonly used to measure its transparency of water that remains visible when it's lowered into it. His results showed that the bluer the lake, the lower the clarity of its water and the lake is actually bluest when algae concentration is low, suggesting a possible need to change in conservation efforts, which traditionally have focused on controlling sediment to keep the lake water clear.

The blueness of the lake is extraordinary along the massive granite walls of D.L. Bliss State Park's Rubicon Point. There it is hard for me to take my eyes off the water as it changes in hues blues as I paddle along with my son Taylor. Under the point, it is the most stunning shade of indigo I think I have ever seen. North of fabled Emerald Bay, this area is a  popular spot for boaters as well as swimmers, who brave the cool waters. Kayaks and speedboats rock along in the waves along the shoreline. For me, finally paddling towards the horizon of mountains proves to be an exhilarating experience.

"This place is spectacular because it is one of the highest, deepest, oldest and purest lakes in the world." said President Barack Obama told a crowd of about 9,000 at the 20th annual Lake Tahoe Summit last week, "It’s no wonder that for thousands of years, this place has been a spiritual one. For the Washoe people, it is the center of their world. And just as this space is sacred to Native Americans, it should be sacred to all Americans."

He challenged all of us, to keep the lake's spirit alive through conservation and combating climate change to protect its pristine views, keep its air pure and most certainly its waters clear and blue.

Over the Bow is a feature from Outside Adventure to the Max, telling the story behind the image. If you have a great picture with a great story, submit it to us at nickayak@gmail.com

OVER THE BOW: LAKE SUPERIOR

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee, The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead, When the skies of November turn gloomy--Gordon Lightfoot

It was late fall in Minnesota. Winter comes quickly there. It pushes the season of autumn out rapidly like an out-of-control locomotive. The beautiful colorful leaves one day are swept away by the rain, ice and snow on the next. Veteran paddlers of Lake Superior will tell you that when the weather turns to winter, the lake can become extremely hazardous for vessels no matter the size. A single storm on Nov. 28, 1905, damaged 29 ships calling for American novelist James Oliver Curwood to write, "It is the most dangerous piece of water in the world. Here winter falls in autumn, and until late spring, it is a region of blizzards and blinding snowstorms. The coast are harborless wildernesses with...reef and rocky headlands that jut out like knives to cuts ships into two." The alarm went out and in 1907 the US Congress appropriated $75,000 to build a lighthouse and fog signal southwest of Silver Bay, Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior.   

Split Rock Lighthouse is considered one of the most picturesque lighthouses on Lake Superior. The lighthouse long since retired by U. S. Coast Guard is now part of the Split Rock Lighthouse State Park and is operated by the Minnesota Historical Society. It has been restored to the way it appear in the late 1920s when it guarded the treacherous and rocky coastline against its 130-foot cliff perch overlooking the lake. Only once a year is the lighthouse lens re-lit in tribute to the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a storm on November 10, 1975.  All 29 crew members perished in one of the Great Lakes' worst shipping disasters forty years ago this month. On the anniversary of the ship's sinking, the names of the crew are read and the beacon is lit at dusk.

Against lake, the imposing and beautiful lighthouse seems to shrink. The forests and rocks on its edges have been diminished. I have never felt so small in a kayak than on Lake Superior. The lake, powerful even when calm bounced me up and down like a float toy as I paddled around the island and bay below the lighthouse. My son Cole and I were on a late-season camping trip on the North Shore. We had brought our Wilderness Systems Tsunami 140 to experience paddling in Little Two Harbors Bay and under the lighthouse. This place has special meaning us. We had visited it several times as a family and had good memories there. Now we would have one more.

While Cole paddled out into the bay, I climbed to the top of nearby Ellingson Island across from the lighthouse's rock face wall. Cole braver than I went out further under the lighthouse. Unprotected from the windswept waters, I watch waves break over his bow. Alone in the vastness, from my viewpoint, he was only speck on the giant sea. Like, novelist, Joseph Conrad said, "The sea has never been friendly to man. At most, it has been the accomplice of human restlessness." It is like that with Lake Superior, sudden storms, very cold water and an unforgiving coastline. It's an uninviting place that seems to call for us home, even in the days before winter.
 
Over the Bow is a feature from Outside Adventure to the Max, telling the story behind the image. If you have a great picture with a great story, submit it to us at nickayak@gmail.com

Action Cam

Over Folsom Lake in the golden hour

 Your adventure is not an adventure anymore unless you chronicle it with photos or video. Today's cameras and social media give us instant results to seeing and sharing our favorite spots and shots. Here are some tips to make sure your biking, hiking, paddling, and day-at-the-beach pictures shine on the social media pages.

Golden Hour
 Time of day makes a difference in capturing photos. The first or last hours of sunlight can produce quality results for picture taking. Photographers refer to it as the "Golden Hour". Those early morning sunrises or evening sunsets provide wonderful light to create a mood for dazzle. What do photographers call the mid-day light of harsh shadows? Lunchtime.

Available Light 
 Good lighting always makes good pictures. Front-lit, with the sun behind the photographer, usually tends to make blue skies and scenic colors, but also can lead to harsh light on faces. Shooting into the sun will cause the subject to be in the shadows against a bright background. A remedy, use your flash to fill in the shadows.

Paddling and pictures with the sun to your back.

Framing 
 Back in my newspaper photography days,  people would look at my camera gear and say, "That camera must take some good pictures."
 The camera was a good one but the real trick is composing the photo and seeing the picture before you press the button. I look for simple images and clutter-free backgrounds. Ansel Adams said it simple, "A good photograph is knowing where to stand."


Stay tight
 Fill the frame with the action. War photographer Bob Capa said, "If your pictures aren't good enough, then your not close enough." A good action photo will draw us into the intensity of the sport. The closer you are to the action, the closer the viewer will be too. Hopefully, you are only one shooting.

Right on top of the action on the Wolf River.

Panoramic Vistas
 You wouldn't think about going to Lake Superior, Yosemite or the Grand Canyon without bringing back a photo. Stay away from the traditional and create your own unique perspective.
"One reason that I love photography," wrote Minnesota photographer Bryan Hansel, " Is that it combines many different engaging elements, including some of my favorite aspects of life: curiosity, creativity, math, science, and imagination."
 Something to think about while searching out your big picture.

Paddling across Lake Superior. this time the place is the star.

Waterproof & Floaty
 If you are into water sports you might look into a waterproof camera. There are many out there on the market with technology and durability in mind.  Attach a float strap to keep your camera from sinking if it gets away from you. I watched helplessly one summer day as my camera slipped out my hand, bounced on the bow of the kayak and into the Red River.  It is a small investment to keep your camera from plunging to the bottom of the lake or river.

Making a video on the Otter Tail River.

GoPro Video Tips
 You have all seen those static shots on Y-Tube. The camera is locked down with one long segment,   making thrilling video dull when it runs too long. When I'm working on my kayak videos I place the camera all around my boat to get different angles. For other shots, I  position the camera on a rock to get video of my kayak paddling through the frame. GoPro has plenty of cool attachments to mount the camera anywhere.