Informative Essay About Canoeing

Canoeing is fun! It's fun on your own, and it's fun with one or two friends or family members. Most standard canoes, though, at fourteen to eighteen feet in length, cannot comfortably accommodate more than three passengers. A beginner's initial experience with canoeing should be on a calm pond or lake, or a calm stretch of river. If it's especially windy, or the lake is crowded with powerboat users and jetskiers, the experience may not be as much fun and the beginning canoeist may become frustrated. In addition, a beginner shouldn't try canoeing the first time on his or her own. While piloting a canoe on one's own can easily be accomplished once one has some paddling experience, it's best to gain that experience with another person, hopefully someone who's paddled a canoe before. …show more content…

The J-stroke is the bow stroke with one crucial addition - at the end of the stroke, give the blade a quarter twist so that it's perpendicular to the water's surface, and give a little push to the outside - if you're paddling on the portside, your stroke will resemble a "J." You'll feel the canoe move a bit to the portside when you do this. When starting from a stop, the turning of the canoe will be more exaggerated, as will be the return swing from the "J," but once the canoe's underway and moving well, the swings from port to starboard and back will become less noticeable and the canoe will be moving more smoothly. Some canoeists, rather than giving that little push at the end of the J-stroke, will just hold the paddle in the water with the blade turned, giving a rudder effect to the end of the stroke. This is useful, especially on long trips when you want to conserve your strength (code for "you're tired"). The drawback is that by the time the canoe straightens out, it's started to slow down. The