Bracing

I picked up a book yesterday, "The Sea Kayaker's Handbook" by Shelley Johnson. I read about bracing and decided to give the low brace a try along shore tonight. It's amazing how much more stable my kayak seems now :) I need a lot more practice but it's nice to get an inkling at where skills might take me.

Skeg

I carved a test skeg to see if it would help with the terrible yaw of the Retrieval. The blade dimensions are 7" long and 3" at it's deepest point. I duct taped it on and took it for a spin tonight. I was a little leery it wouldn't work but it was amazing how much it helped. For the first time I got into a rhythm paddling because every stroke didn't have to be a correction stroke.

The Bank

Shots of the Middle Loup Bank.

Stranded Log

Old tree trunk returning to the sand.

River Shots

Here's a couple pictures of the Middle Loup I took during one of our breaks.

Sandhill Lobster

Here's a picture of a river resident that dropped by during one of our breaks. During a previous break we had a bull snake swim across the river in front of us. Unfortunately I had already packed the camera back in the dry bag.

Sand Hills

The Middle Loup river is nestled in North Central Nebraska in the Sandhills. Here's a couple pictures showing the sand the native prairie resides on.