A GIVEAWAY! Plus We Talk About Paddles.

We have a special GIVEAWAY from our pal Josh at www.portagepal.ca, so listen closely to this episode and send us an email with the correct answer!
Pamela and Tim also chat about different types of paddles for canoeing and kayaking.

https://www.portagepal.ca/

https://www.instagram.com/theoriginalportagepal/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095635412844

josh@portagepal.ca

Transcript

00:00 - 00:01
Hello, and good day, eh?

00:01 - 00:04
Welcome to the Super Good Camping podcast. My name is Pamela.

00:04 - 00:05
I'm Tim.

00:05 - 00:06
And we are from supergoodcamping.com.

00:07 - 00:11
We're here because we're on a mission to inspire other families to enjoy camping adventures

00:11 - 00:12
such as we have with our kids.

00:12 - 00:16
Today's episode is about paddles, specifically canoe and kayak paddles.

00:17 - 00:22
Please do listen all the way to the end of the episode for details about a super cool draw that

00:22 - 00:26
we have coming up in partnership with Portage Pal.

00:26 - 00:30
And if you wanna be in the draw, you're gonna have to look to the end to find out how you can

00:30 - 00:32
get yourself a PortagePal for yourself.

00:32 - 00:34
Let's start with the different parts of a paddle.

00:34 - 00:38
Alright. For those of you, listening to the audio podcast, I don't know.

00:38 - 00:42
Maybe maybe just for a change of pace, pop over and and check out our YouTube channel.

00:42 - 00:47
I'm gonna show you parts of the paddle as well as try to explain what is what.

00:47 - 00:50
So grip is the top of the paddle.

00:50 - 00:51
It depends on, I'm right handed.

00:51 - 00:56
I tend to paddle on the right hand side of the canoe if I can get away with it.

00:56 - 00:58
So my left hand is on the grip.

00:59 - 01:00
The next part would be the shaft.

01:01 - 01:05
That's the skinny bit in between the grip and the blade.

01:05 - 01:08
Can I get this on camera? Look at that. The blade. Yeah.

01:08 - 01:11
So there's 2 two different types of grips, I suppose.

01:11 - 01:16
There's a palm grip a la like this one where your your hand sort of wraps.

01:16 - 01:18
It just sort of fits in your palm I guess.

01:18 - 01:20
This is why they call, I don't know, I didn't name it.

01:20 - 01:24
And then there's a t grip which is exactly as it sounds.

01:24 - 01:28
It tends to be a little bit more for white water type people to see.

01:28 - 01:31
You can you can be more precise with your strokes that way.

01:31 - 01:35
Shaft, 2 different types of shaft, 2 different styles of shaft.

01:35 - 01:40
There's a straight shaft like this one here or you can get a bent shaft.

01:40 - 01:42
Just it's a it's a more efficient shaft.

01:42 - 01:51
It puts puts the blade more square to, I guess, the force, your force of your your paddle stroke,

01:51 - 01:53
it pushes more pushes more wire.

01:53 - 02:03
So some flat water paddlers have a bent shaft and and then a straight shaft is more of a river

02:03 - 02:06
running type type thing or whitewater again.

02:06 - 02:13
And then oh, well, I guess I should also mention you can get your shaft can be oval or round.

02:14 - 02:20
I think most of ours are pretty much round. Sorry.

02:20 - 02:24
I'm looking around at all our all our paddles. We have many paddles. Yeah.

02:24 - 02:26
I think all of ours are round.

02:26 - 02:32
I don't I I wanna say that the throat, which is closest to the to where the shaft is closest to the blade.

02:32 - 02:38
I wanna say that it feels a little more oval there so I don't don't know. It's whatever.

02:38 - 02:40
It feels feels comfortable with my hands on. I don't care.

02:40 - 02:46
And then and then, of course, the the blade itself, this particular one that I'm I'm showing

02:46 - 02:52
now is one that we got with our our old Fiberless Scott Canute.

02:53 - 03:00
This is more of a, I don't know that I'd say this is a white water paddle because they're different

03:00 - 03:02
now, but but this is more of a shallow water paddle.

03:02 - 03:07
It's got a bit of a hardened end on it so you don't you don't break it and scratch it up as

03:07 - 03:08
much, that sort of deal.

03:08 - 03:12
They they come in all kinds of diff this one's a very squared off.

03:13 - 03:17
I think we have both an otter tail and a beavertail.

03:17 - 03:21
Otter tail is a little more rounded towards the bottom of the blade.

03:21 - 03:24
Beavertail is a little more narrow. Yeah.

03:24 - 03:28
Whitewaters are are sort of sort of short, wide, square tip.

03:28 - 03:35
Kayak blades tend to be more asymmetrical, and I will show you half of a kayak blade.

03:36 - 03:44
But you can see it's got it's got it it doesn't square up, But because you're tilting out either

03:44 - 03:51
side of your of your kayak or in in my case, the solo canoe, when it when it tips into the water

03:51 - 03:57
because of that asymmetrical end on it, it actually squares it up far more when it's in the water.

03:57 - 04:02
You get you get better push for your for your for each stroke. That's it. Materials.

04:02 - 04:09
Cool. And then in terms of what they're made of, ours are for the canoe, they're wood paddles.

04:09 - 04:17
So flat water canoeing, they'd be either solid or laminated wood and often they're cherry maple or walnut. And excuse me.

04:17 - 04:23
In terms of other materials, they could be used for white water or river paddling and kayakers.

04:23 - 04:27
They might be aluminum, plastic, fiberglass, and or carbon.

04:28 - 04:33
Yeah. They can they can be when you get into kayak paddles or which is a bit of a misnomer,

04:33 - 04:43
they are kayak paddles, but a lot of a lot of solo, like, smaller canoe, we use kayak paddles to to do those. Yeah.

04:43 - 04:49
I've seen aluminum ones, nice and light, a little cold on your hands in the spring or in the fall.

04:50 - 04:55
This my mine is carbon. No. Sorry. Fiberglass.

04:55 - 04:57
It fit my price range.

04:57 - 05:02
It keeps keeps it light, keeps it strong, but and I can also mine is adjustable.

05:02 - 05:09
We'll we'll talk about sizing shortly, but but I can I can vary the the length of my my paddle?

05:09 - 05:14
And 2 blades, I guess, is is also a thing for the, for the kayak paddles.

05:14 - 05:18
I I out each side each side. Yeah.

05:18 - 05:21
We and which works really well for the solo too.

05:21 - 05:23
Like, I can get honking in in the in the little canoe.

05:23 - 05:30
Yeah. So efficiency wise, you've got a stroke on each side of the of the kayak work canoe. Yep. Cool.

05:30 - 05:40
There you go. Sizing. So so it's important for for your comfort and for for getting getting

05:40 - 05:45
the most propulsion, I guess, out of each stroke.

05:45 - 05:47
I mean, if you're just farting around, probably not such a big deal.

05:47 - 05:52
But if you're actually doing a, you know, you're out on a canoe trip or whatever, making sure

05:52 - 05:55
you've got the right size paddle is important.

05:55 - 05:59
There are 2 different ways 2 different ways that I know of to do it.

05:59 - 06:05
You can so if you if you kneel down and then lower your butt to about maybe 6 inches off the

06:05 - 06:10
off the floor, take the take the paddle, put it grip down.

06:10 - 06:12
That's the that's the upper upper part.

06:12 - 06:14
Of the blades up in the air.

06:15 - 06:20
The throat, that that part I talked about briefly earlier, basically where the where the shaft

06:21 - 06:27
and the, sorry, the shaft and the blade meet, the throat should be somewhere between your chin and your nose.

06:27 - 06:29
That's the idea behind it.

06:30 - 06:37
You can also take it, put it up in the air, and and again, grabbing the throat and also the grip.

06:38 - 06:42
If your arms, see this is this is a bit long for me. No.

06:42 - 06:43
It's not too bad, I guess.

06:43 - 06:47
So 90 degree angle? 90 degree angle?

06:47 - 06:53
I'm at my elbows and and and hold the paddle above your head, and that that would be a a well

06:53 - 06:59
sized blade for you to use or well sized paddle for you to use.

06:59 - 07:01
I have no idea how to size kayak ones.

07:01 - 07:08
We when I bought mine, we were trying to figure out because it's because I'm not buying it for a kayak.

07:08 - 07:13
I was buying it for our little 14 foot solo canoe.

07:13 - 07:18
And I I honestly hadn't been out in it, so I didn't know how much tumblehome, which is the the

07:18 - 07:21
sort of roundness at the top of the canoe.

07:21 - 07:25
I didn't I didn't know how far out I was going to need to go and stuff like that because they're

07:25 - 07:27
set up different from from a kayak.

07:27 - 07:29
So that's why I bought the adjustable one.

07:29 - 07:36
We sort of ballpark where I thought where we thought I should be size wise and then had I think

07:36 - 07:42
it gives me about 10 centimeters each smaller or longer. It seems to work.

07:42 - 07:44
It felt quite good when I got out in it.

07:44 - 07:46
That's it for sizing maintenance.

07:46 - 07:48
So keep your paddles clean.

07:48 - 07:53
Come home for a trip that's all muddy and stuff. Clean it off.

07:53 - 07:58
Repair some scratches, especially if it's, you know, wood wooden water that you'll end up with

07:58 - 08:05
a warped pile or, broken or split pile if you're not kinda keeping it water impermeable?

08:06 - 08:09
Correct. Actually, why don't you hand me that one?

08:09 - 08:14
I'll I'll show you show you how how not done maintenance yet.

08:14 - 08:20
So this is a paddle, I made man, I was 14, 15, something like that.

08:21 - 08:24
For those of you for those of you watching Gonna walk me in the head.

08:24 - 08:27
It's it's it's got a few scratches on it.

08:27 - 08:33
Mostly mostly river made scratches, although we've had we've had some portages that, as you

08:33 - 08:36
came up to the portage, a little low level water.

08:37 - 08:39
This is a Varathanes paddle.

08:39 - 08:41
There is what's the other one?

08:41 - 08:49
Tung oil is the other, which a lot of especially the smarter folks who who paddle hard, apparently,

08:49 - 08:53
Varathane will give you I haven't had it happen to me, but will give you blisters on your hands

08:53 - 08:55
eventually because the the whatever.

08:55 - 09:00
I got I make the assumption that the moisture gets trapped between the Varathane and your hands

09:00 - 09:01
and causes that to happen.

09:03 - 09:08
Lots of the higher end paddles are oiled in Tung Oil.

09:09 - 09:12
It's also much easier to do the maintenance on that.

09:12 - 09:15
For me, I can put another coat of very thin on this.

09:15 - 09:17
It's gonna look like crap. Just saying.

09:17 - 09:24
It it won't it won't be nearly as pretty or I can strip this and put tung oil on, which I have

09:24 - 09:30
in my list of if I remember sitting around picking my nose for an entire weekend. Yeah.

09:30 - 09:32
So we'll we'll see what happens, but that's that's the idea behind it.

09:32 - 09:38
You know, repair your scratches so that water doesn't get into your into your paddle, however

09:38 - 09:40
that needs to happen, and then storage.

09:40 - 09:43
Storing, dry and out of the sun, ideally.

09:43 - 09:49
Sunshine, just heat, and things may cause your paddle to warp, and, trying hanging them up.

09:49 - 09:53
So you can see that ours are hung in the living room. And

09:53 - 09:54
The ones that we did

09:54 - 09:56
not share. Because it's my end of the couch.

09:56 - 10:02
And every time I move around on my end of the couch, I whack a pat. And then But

10:02 - 10:05
if you store them in the corner, they're gonna get warped.

10:05 - 10:11
What? Warped or Tim mentioned earlier, like, if we if you accidentally knock it over, then you've got scratches.

10:11 - 10:13
And, yeah, lots of noise. Yeah.

10:13 - 10:19
And and, also, sun is UV is not your friend with with most of your camping gear, period.

10:19 - 10:26
So and then and probably the most important thing of all of this, take a spare with you. Something will happen.

10:26 - 10:33
Something whether you leave one behind, which we somehow are too less than we used to have.

10:33 - 10:34
I don't know how that happened.

10:35 - 10:42
Or heaven forbid, you know, you get into if you're river paddling and you go through like a

10:42 - 10:47
little swift or something like that and somehow it gets jammed in between 2 rocks and snap,

10:47 - 10:53
you know, especially the especially the lighter, like Thomas's is a pretty light paddle.

10:53 - 10:55
That would be that would be very poopy.

10:55 - 10:57
Mine's mine's a lot a lot more bomb proof.

10:58 - 11:03
It would really suck because paddling with just a shaft isn't gonna do much for you. Just saying, you know.

11:03 - 11:05
Gonna take you a long time to get anywhere.

11:05 - 11:06
Or if you you know what?

11:06 - 11:10
I've I've heard of people too where they they went to tried to reach out for something and the

11:10 - 11:11
panel slipped out of their hands.

11:11 - 11:16
There's your panel floating away from you. Bye. Bye bye. Bye bye, panel.

11:17 - 11:22
So take a spare so you can do something when you're when you're sans paddle.

11:23 - 11:26
And I think you've actually donated a paddle to somebody too who Yep.

11:26 - 11:27
Lost or broken a paddle.

11:28 - 11:34
Yep. Alright. So today's special thing is, we're doing a giveaway.

11:34 - 11:35
We're gonna do a draw.

11:36 - 11:38
We've been talking to this very cool dude, Josh.

11:39 - 11:41
He's it's called the portage pow.

11:42 - 11:49
So for those of you that have spent time in a canoe and going from lake to lake, one of the

11:49 - 11:54
joyful things of of going be from one lake to another lake is carrying all your crap.

11:54 - 12:00
Paddles in particular, paddles, fishing rods, anything that's that's they're they're unwieldy

12:00 - 12:02
when they're when they're long like that.

12:02 - 12:06
Josh has made 3 d prints, this super cool thing.

12:06 - 12:08
It's called the portage pal.

12:08 - 12:10
It holds it holds your paddles.

12:10 - 12:12
It holds your fishing rods.

12:12 - 12:16
It holds your PFD, and and it's got a handle.

12:16 - 12:21
So you can you can literally have your canoe on your back and be carrying all your stuff, and

12:21 - 12:27
it's not all going all over the place and trying to trip you up and and do all the things. It's very cool.

12:27 - 12:31
I'm I'm very excited about this because I can't believe nobody's ever come up with this before.

12:31 - 12:35
I would say, let's let's have a draw for it.

12:35 - 12:39
Shoot us an email at SuperGoodCamping.com.

12:39 - 12:47
That's hi@supergoodcamping.com, and we will do we'll do a Google random generator, and we'll

12:47 - 12:49
pull pull one name out of the hat as it were.

12:49 - 12:58
Give us what what 3 woods did we mention that most wooden paddles are made of. That's 3 woods.

12:58 - 13:01
Go back and listen again. Just just saying. Yeah.

13:01 - 13:03
And we'll we'll draw 1 and we'll, we'll we'll get it chipped off to you.

13:04 - 13:14
Let let's say you've got until May 1st, 2 weeks. 2 weeks to to to get that into us. And, yeah, I'm excited. I was so cool.

13:15 - 13:20
Yeah. So that's, you need to email because we we don't get enough emails.

13:20 - 13:21
We don't.

13:22 - 13:26
And, it's SuperGoodCamping.com. That's hi@supergoodcamping.com.

13:28 - 13:29
And that's it for us for today.

13:29 - 13:31
We will talk to you again soon.

13:32 - 13:34
If you would like to reach us, you know our email.

13:34 - 13:38
And also if you wanna be in the draw for the portaj pal, you have to email.

13:39 - 13:40
And that's before May 1st.

13:40 - 13:44
And otherwise, check-in with us on all of the social media.

13:44 - 13:50
So we're Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and you can always watch us on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

13:50 - 13:54
We would love to see you there, and we'll talk to you again soon. Bye. Bye.