I saw this tweet and discovered the most lovely little critter Otter (sorry nature lovers) I have seen in a very long time. Makes me want to pick him up, give him a big squishy bear hug and take him home to play with.

Thanks to @BoxyButGood for letting me post it.

Possibly the cutest photo ever taken. This adorable little guy was smitten with our boats. #SeaOtter #Kayak

Possibly the cutest photo ever taken. This adorable little guy was smitten with our boats. #SeaOtter #Kayak twitpic.com/958ths

— Jeremy Catherall (@BoxyButGood) April 3, 2012

 

The Eddyline Restaurant and Brewing Company in Buena Vista, Colorado is looking the official photo for their new boater beer can. If you want to get in, post the low resolution photo to their Facebook wall and they will get in touch if they like it.

$200 REWARD!!! We need a perfect picture for our boater beer can! We need a picture of a crashing wave where the water is clear, the tongue leading into the wave is glassy and the top of wave is white and frothy! This needs to be a head on shot where the crashing foam pile takes up the top third of the picture. This pic will be the background of the Can'O'whitewater! In addition to the $200 we will let the winner help with the initial canning run, get two free cases of beer and will be famous to the Eddyline community! We would keep all rights to the picture. Post a low res version here, email us, or drop by and show us.

Mark Tipple is a surf photographer who got bored of shooting empty waves so he decided to dive down and see what the waves look like from that perspective. The results are amazing.

Mark is also selling a very limited edition handmade book containing his best photos as part of The Underwater Project. Only 250 of these gems are going to be produced.

More info: theunderwaterproject.com

Photo Credit: Mark Tipple

Check out these boat shoes from this vintage photo. Looks like she is standing on top of two torpedoes. Sadly the date and location of the photo is unknown.

How did this boat design not take off in popularity?

Flckr Photo credit: ADiamondFellFromTheSky, Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic / CC BY-NC 2.0

Here is Nick Castro from activeseakayaking.ca playing in a tide race at Baynes Channel inVictoria BC a couple of days ago.

I wrote him for more information about the photo and here is what he said:

This was 2 days ago at Baynes Channel, Victoria BC, our local Tide race. It was a great day with mid size to big, good small swell coming after 36hrs of SE and about 4 kn of Ebb,

That is Ben Garrett dropping in behind. We surfed until dark and it was getting better and better but too messy for night surfing.

Photo credit: Nick Castro. Used with permission.

This is Dave Wells from Naturally Superior Adventures and Scott Ewart from 1000 Islands Kayak are getting a serious arm workout.

Virginia Marshall from Adventure Kayak magazine took this awesome photo at the 2011 Georgian Bay Storm Gathering last month. That’s 35 knot (70 km/h) winds and yes, the rain is coming in sideways.

Check out this old photo of a motorcycle sidecar with a quick-detachable canoe. I can’t believe that the side car was an actual commercial item available in 1927-1927.

You can see more unusual canoe sidecars on the always entertaining Paddle Making blog.

Local paddling school and friends of the site, learntokayak.ca just posted the short list for their second annual sticker/photo contest and they are looking for your help in picking the winner.

It’s easy to pass your judgement. Just go to the photo contest on Facebook and click like for the photos you think are the best and the one with the most votes gets brand new Werner Paddle.

You had better hurray as the winner gets announced Friday, September 30.

Image Credits: learntokayak.ca 2011 Photo Contest

I got the latest issue of Adventure Kayak (Summer/Fall 2011) and was pleased to discover that one of my photos had been selected for their photo themed issue. Actually the photo was discovered by one of my kids who grabbed it from the mail and started flipping through it before I could get my grubby hands on it.

This photo was taken inToronto’s Western Gap during a cold January day back in 2010. Long time readers will remember the Western Gap as a section of poorly designed break walls that tend to capture energy and hold-in waves rather then dispersing them as a break wall should. It’s so well known in the local nautical world that most sailing guidebooks about the great lakes warn you to stay out of the area if there is any wind blowing out of the southwest.

I’m not exactly sure where this was taken but looking at some other photos in the Flickr photostream it was taken in the Bohuslän archipelago in Sweden.

And here is a very unrelated bonus photo for you. Darth Vader busking in Victoria, BC.

Top photo credit: Alt. kayak / Mads Bødker / http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Bottom photo credit: Victoria BC Canada - Inner Harbour - Darth Vader Busker / Cindy Andrie / http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/