Fritz.......

So you got a pontoon boat!!!

Well, feast your eyes on this!!!









Is that a classy ride, or what!!!?????

Pax!

So.......I was looking through the local auction listings and I'm amazed to see an auction with five very high quality, like new canoes offered along with the rest of a pretty boring estate.

Turns out there's a consignment of stuff added to the auction and it's all wonderful canoe stuff, packs, paddles, tents, various and sundry equipment.

Since we are in farm country and far from canoe country, I think......whoa......this stuff is gonna go VERY cheap.

As usual, I was right.

So, I ended up spending about $1800. I bought a bunch of equipment plus the red canoe for myself and another for a friend. They went for far less than half of their actual value.

My canoe is a 16 foot wood and canvas Cedarwood Prospector. It was built in 1998 on a Prospector mold from the old Chestnut Canoe company (which went out of business after about 60 years, around 1980, when Cedarwood took over).

The Cedarwood Company went out of business in 2002 and the old Chestnut forms were purchased by the local (New Brunswick) First Nation (Native Canadians) who are now selling canoes made on those same old Chestnut forms and calling themselves the Great Spirit Canoe Company. They have continued the tradition of meticulous hand crafting of these canoes.

http://www.greatspiritcanoes.com/html/main.htm

Sort of fitting that the inventors would become the last builders after so many years.

Canoes have a rich and fascinating history here and in Canada and I now own a piece of it.......a handmade work of art (which I can paddle just as was done a thousand years ago).

That's the story of the red canoe......well, my part, anyway.

The rest of the story (of which I heard a quick and sketchy account from the owner) involved a journey from New Brunswick to Colorado to the Adirondacks to Minnesota, plus great romance, love won, love lost, heartbreak, financial disaster and bitterness.

Everything has a story......that's one of the fun things about life, isn't it?

Pax!

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Fritz!

Where are you?

I need a fellow boater to appreciate this, I guess.



Or Doc.......since he builds beautiful stuff with his bare hands.

Pax!

Wow, it looks like a vag....um never mind....

Very nice Logos...I watched a show one time of how those are made and the craftsmanship involved.

I prefer a nice padded chair and a key to turn and away we go.

Thanks, Fritz......comfort is good too.

The canoe is a whole different thing. It can get you to quiet places where no motor boat can go. That's fun.

So, have you been catching fish!?

Pax!

Logos says:

OK, you totally lost me on that one. I can't think of the word you might be referring to--though I'm usually fairly good with words.

The fishing has been fairly poor,not only ourselves but other have said so as well...I can see loads of fish on the fish finder but they ain't hungry it seems...my wife did catch a 7 lb channel cat while we were swimming a couple of days ago so we ate two nice fillets.

We usually go to a cove and the kids and mom swim,our two grandbabies love the water and while anchored sink and couple of worms...doesn't get much better than that.

That's a fine piece of work there, Logos. The only thing I'd worry about is the red fading out the more it sits out in the sun, so it'd be best to store it in a shed.

I've been lookin at plans for years, as it pertains to making one myself outta cedar, but I wouldn't be able get it out of my basement workshop once I had it finished.

I did own a good one, though, for white water canoeing, when I lived in the North East. It was 12 foot long and weighed about 60 pounds, being made outta fiberglass reinforced wood. It had a round bottom with no keel so you could turn on a dime to get away from submerged rocks, but it was useless on a pond or a lake, especially when the wind was blowing...you could paddle your brains out it but would always end up wherever the wind blew.

Hope you have lotsa fun with it...

doc

Wow!!!!!!!!!!

She must be an incredibly fast swimmer!!!!!

I've seen otters do that, but I didn't know a human could swim that well.



Actually, that's a real nice channel cat. I used to catch them on the Cloquet river up north years ago, but our cold-water cats don't get that big.

This is a slow time of the year for fishing......it will pick up in September up here.

Pax!

Oh, I will.....it's hanging in the garage, now......I'm enjoying it solely for its beauty. I don't anticipate taking it out for a while. I have another canoe for using in the muddy waters of this area.

I'm waiting to see if we get a gusher in North Dakota......if we do, we'll buy a place north of Brainerd and keep the canoes up there. I love going for sunset and sunrise canoe rides, but that only works well if you're already at the lake.

Pax!

My oldest son and one of his buddys caught two nice channel cats yesterday,they went early and we came later after we picked up his wife and our grandson and dropped Mac off at work.

My scale went south some time back but I would guess one at over 10 pounds and the other a three.

Fish dinner tonight.

Yes, that's a great fillet.

Our red canoe is fiberglass – yours is very beautiful Logos. It is almost too beautiful to use.

Our family went tubing down the river a few weeks ago, each in our own tractor tire inner tube. We were on the water for several hours; that too is a quiet and peaceful way to travel except when your bum or the bum of someone else in your party hits an unexpected rock.

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I think tubing requires far more courage and trust than I could ever muster.

Careening down a river with my bottom hanging out exposed to whatever menace could present itself.......no, I cannot, will not, no, no, no.

Canoes though.......canoes I love.

I have a green Royalite Mohawk 16 foot for actual and regular use. It only weighs 59 pounds and it's a fast asymmetrical design so it paddles real nice.

The red one is a Prospector model.....designed for heavy loads and rough waters......and weighs about 78 pounds.

The red one will only get a few outings, and those will be up north.

It looks really sharp hanging in the garage.



It's going to take a real special trip to get me to get it down and throw it on top of the van.