My Book!!

One opportunity that the blog has brought me is the co-authoring of a guidebook, Paddling Southern Maine! It is something in which I take a lot of pride! My writing partner, Sandy Moore, and I have created a book with 54 amazing trips that are within about an hour of Portland! Our motto as we wrote the book was wanting to 'get people to spend the day on the water and not in their cars!'

If you want more information on our book please click on the image of the book below.

Sandy and I are available to attend/present various functions/events. Please email me at mainekayakgirl@gmail.com for more information!

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

The Other Portland

This blog focuses on my Maine Kayaking adventures, but I wanted to share that I had the opportunity to paddle in The Other Portland... Oregon!  I went out there to visit a friend who knows my passion for kayaking.  He found a place where we could go on a kayak tour in the Willamette River.  We went to the business a couple of days before the scheduled tour to make sure we could get boats that were comfortable.  (At 6'6" a boat that fits is critical!)  On the day of the paddle we had a good time... the waterway was BUSY and I was surprised at the condition of the water... dirty when compared to what I am used to here.  I know there are many other places in Oregon to kayak and next time I go we will rent the kayaks and take them elsewhere, but it was cool to do some urban kayaking! 
Lessons learned for when kayaking away from home: Bring my own life jacket and paddle. Their life jackets were not comfortable because it was not what I am used to and their paddles were the very basic paddles, had to work three times as hard to get where I wanted to go!  
Here are a few pictures:

I liked the exposed roots...

Oregon Ducks!


Someone fell in!  (Happened to be my Oregon host... he was a great sport about it!) 

Buildings instead of moose, deer, or frogs??!! 

Part of the tour group...

An Oregon heron! 

It was cool to go under the bridges. 
More Maine spots to come!