Adventures

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Small Boats Annual 2022February 2021

Don’t Tell Me I Can’t

Isabelle Heker's Greenland kayak

When Isabelle Heker decided to build a Greenland-style kayak, her friends and family doubted she was up to the task. In spite of her lack of woodworking experience, tools, and a place to work, she forged ahead and proved something to everyone, including herself.

14

January 2021

The Texas Coastal Bend

An escape to barrier islands

Roger Siebert takes us on another sail-and-oar adventure, this time to the barrier islands of the Texas Coastal Bend. The protected bays, mild November weather, and company of boater friends and dolphins made a memorable getaway.

13

December 2020

A Quarantine Cruise

Wisconsin’s West Coast by sail and oar

When travel restrictions prevented Tom Pamperin from getting to his usual cruising grounds, he looked for possibilities closer to his Wisconsin home. Over half of the state’s western border is created by the Mississippi River, so he set out to cruise a section of Wisconsin’s “West Coast.”

31

November 2020

Bainbridge Island

A Puget Sound solo circumnavigation

Although August is usually a month of doldrums on Puget Sound, our editor’s summer solo circumnavigation of Bainbridge Island offered good sailing as well as torrential rain and a sudden squall that put a capsized daysailer in need of a rescue.

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October 2020

Swan’s Island

A Maine Coast Circumnavigation

Each summer, a group of five friends usually get together with their sail-and-oar camp-cruisers to enjoy the island-studded Maine coast. This year, the three who were free to travel during the pandemic circumnavigated Swan’s Island.

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September 2020

Solace of the South Salish

A sojourn by sail and oar

Looking for a place to breathe freely in the midst of the pandemic, Bruce Bateau set sail on Washington’s narrow waterways at the southern extremity of the Salish Sea. He spent four restorative nights at anchor in coves too small and too shallow for most boats.

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August 2020

Dammed

Exploring Washington's Riffe Lake

Riffe Lake is a reservoir in the foothills of Washington State’s Cascade Mountains, an idyllic setting but for the shoreline’s reminders of abandoned towns, lost forests, and an aging dam.

Small Boats Annual 2021July 2020

A Solar Solo

Cruising the Rideau Canal

Phil Boyer takes a look back at his first fully solar-powered cruise. In SOL CANADA, a boat he built with a canopy covered with solar cells, he traveled 125 miles from Kingston, Ontario, to Ottawa, along a canal system that has been carrying boat traffic since 1832.

June 2020

Downriver, Part 2

From St. Louis to the Mississippi Delta

In our March 2019 issue, David Hudson shared with us his adventure on the Upper Mississippi River and now he’s back with his row down the Lower Mississippi to its delta on the Gulf of Mexico. The river is bigger and so are the ships, the rafts of barges, and the sand bars.

May 2020

The Race to Alaska, Almost

Trailing the fleet, keeping up with the leaks

Thor Belle found an old Swampscott dory rotting away under a tangle of blackberry bushes and decided to make it seaworthy again. He and Pax Templeton did their best to put the boat back to rights and entered it in the 2019 Race to Alaska. They soon discovered that the dory wasn’t really up to the task, but they pressed on in spite of the difficulties.

Small Boats Annual 2021April 2020

A Red-Lantern Journey

Ontario's Lake of the Woods

Tom Pamperin had Ontario’s Lake of the Woods in his sights for years. When he finally got underway at a launch ramp on the lake’s eastern shore, he was eager to venture into the maze of islets ahead of him and in no hurry to get back.

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March 2020

Cruising the Broughton Archipelago

Four for oar and sail

Eric Hvalsoe and his three cruising buddies headed to the north end of Vancouver Island, each with a sail-and-oar boat they’d built, and set out to wander among the islands of the Broughton Archipelago. Tides, currents and whales kept them on their toes.

Small Boats Annual 2021February 2020

Sunday Pass

A Texas winter getaway

Sunday Beach was a popular spot for sun-worshipping Texans until it was obliterated by Hurricane Harvey in the fall of 2017. Now known as Sunday Pass, the 1000’ gap in the land at Matagorda Island offers new cruising and beach camping opportunities for small boat. Roger Siebert takes us there for a weekend getaway aboard his 15’ Flint.

January 2020

Across an Ocean

Rowing the Atlantic

After Christophe Papillon served as a paratrooper, he retired from the military and needed to find other ways to slake his thirst for adventure. He had done a bit of kayaking and some freshwater sailing, so the challenge he set for himself was a daunting one: rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

December 2019

Southing in the Inside Passage

A sail-and-oar voyage

Bruce Bateau took the summer off, launched his boat near the north end of Vancouver Island, and headed south to a haul-out 350 miles away, with only two sails and two oars to get him there.

November 2019

A Fringe of the Wild

Wisconsin's Turtle-Flambeau Flowage

After an unexpectedly dreary summer, Tom Pamperin drove off with his boat in tow and no clear destination in mind except “away.” He found the restorative “away” he was seeking in the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage of Wisconsin’s north woods.

October 2019

Barron Canyon

Canoeing the Algonquin

Phil Boyer and two of his good friends paddled three of Phil’s canoes along the Barron River in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park, and portaged to nearby lakes where they contended with boulders by day and bullfrogs by night.

September 2019

Running on Sunshine

The Trent-Severn Waterway under solar power

Phil Boyer likes exploring the many inland waterways of southern Ontario and can cruise all day without raising a sail, breaking a sweat, or burning fossil fuel. His strip-built launch, SOL CANADA, has an electric motor and a canopy covered with solar cells. We tag along for his 337-mile solo on the Trent-Severn Waterway.

August 2019

An Uphill Battle

Northern Forest Canoe Trail, the wrong way

In 2013, Peter Macfarlane paddled the 750 miles of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail from west to east, taking advantage of the net 1,300’ drop in elevation. Five years later, he paddled the trail again, but from east to west, the hard way. We tag along for the long uphill journey.

July 2019

Dallying Downeast

Meandering the Maine coast by sea kayak

Michael and Rebecca Daugherty wanted to kayak the Maine coast and take their time doing it. They closed their business, sold their house, and meandered the length of the coast from Portland to the Canadian border—twice. They covered 600 miles before the end of summer nudged them ashore.

June 2019

Lessons from Penobscot Bay

In pursuit of thrills

Arch Davis, the New Zealand-born, Maine-based designer of small boats, set out in a brisk northwesterly wind, hoping for an exciting sail on Penobscot Bay. He got more than he bargained for and the memories and the lessons from that day have stayed with him for 30 years.

May 2019

Zaire, 1986

The Sankuru and Kasai Rivers by pirogue

In 1986, when the country once known as Zaire was under the rule of a dictator, Tom DeVries, his college roommate, and a Peace Corp volunteer rendezvoused in Central Africa country to paddle down serpentine Zairean rivers in a hand-carved dugout pirogue.

April 2019

Roll on Columbia

100 miles upriver by oar and sail

A 12’ skiff is a small boat for a river as big as the Columbia. Torin Lee launched his Salt Bay Skiff near Astoria, Oregon, and worked his way 100 miles upriver, dodging ships, dragging his boat across the marsh, and finishing on the Willamette River in Portland.

March 2019

Downriver, Part 1

Rowing the Upper Mississippi

When David Hudson built a 17’ dory in his back yard last summer, he had in mind to row and sail it the 1,800 miles of the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. The journey was not about racking up miles but gathering experience and memories.

Small Boats Annual 2020February 2019

A Superior Circumnavigation

Two women, two kayaks, 1,200 miles

Uma Blanchard and Sophie Goeks, two college students with their final exams recently completed, launched kayaks from Little Sand Bay on Wisconsin’s Lake Superior shore and headed west. When they returned to the launch site 86 days later, they approached it from the east, having paddled the entire 1,200 mile perimeter of the greatest of the Great Lakes.