How to break through the surf

This is an article I wrote this spring that has just been published in Paddler Magazine. Due to space constraints all the photos that I intended to go along with the article didn't make the cut. I have included those extra photos in this post to further explain the techniques described in the article.

Additionally, come join me on October 19-21 for a surf kayaking class at Cape Hatteras, NC. I will be co-instructing the course with Philip Aschliman through NOC's instruction program. You will be able to sign up through NOC.com
In the meantime I have put together a short video teaser of the skills you can learn in this class, incliding how to paddle out, as detailed in the below article. Download the video by clicking here!

Please enjoy,

Spencer Cooke, Effort.tv

Please click the image for the full size, legible article.








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"I have to think like an adult here." This is the response I was given by a friend of mine recently when I suggested to him that he should send an entry in to the IR Vacation to Hell. Don't get me wrong, this is a friend who I respect. The reason this stuck out in my mind is because I realized that I would never say something like, "I have to think like an adult here," and I certainly would not rationalize why I couldn't enter the IR event because of my adulthood, or lack thereof. This was one of his reasons for not being interested in the event. Now, if being and adult consists of restricting yourself from things such as the aforementioned then I have another quote for you from one of the greatest punk bands ever, The Descendents - "I don't want to grow up." My son agrees.


Sincerely,

Adult, Spencer Cooke

Here are some of my best friends "thinking like adults."

Recently Chris Gragtmans and I took a kayaking trip to BC's world class Skookumchuck wave. We had an awesome trip but were greatly disappointed that logging may drastically and negatively change the environment there.

Click here to watch the Skook Video from Effort.tv




Citizens of Egmont (Skookumchuck), BC and a group of concerned kayakers are making efforts to stop a logging operation that will threaten the water source for the town and no doubt leave a nasty eye sore for paddlers and other tourists to see. Please take a moment to write the forestry rep in Egmont, BC. THE DEADLINE to write IS JUNE 6th.

Please read this letter to kayakers from the Skook locals:

An Open Letter to all White Water Kayakers


The village of Egmont, BC, is asking for the help of all kayakers who have ridden (or aspire to ride) the waves of the Skookumchuck Rapids. We have learned that a logging company has acquired the logging license in this area. The logging plans involve three huge clear cuts on the local watershed with one that extends right to the Skookumchuck Trail within the Provincial Park. Also, there is a planned cutblock that would mow down the trees along Egmont Road from Highway 101 to North Lake; a huge cutblock off of Maple Road; and another cutblock on the watershed at the north end of Ruby Lake. As well, the company plans to log Sechelt Nation Reserve lands just inside the Sechelt Inlet just past the rapids.

The residents of Egmont asked if the logging company would take a sustainable logging approach but they said no and so the area's residents have said no to the logging company. We now ask for your support to keep the logging out of this area. We ask that you email the forestry rep before a June 6th deadline at
cam_forrester@dccnet.com
and copy that email to us at skookumnarrows@yahoo.ca

Please address your email to:

Cam Forrester, R.P.F., Consulting Forester
6231 Sunshine Coast Highway, Sechelt, BC V0N 3A7
Tel: 604-885-7142, Fax: 604-885-7112
Email: cam_forrester@dccnet.com


We will be posting all information about this proposed logging and our efforts to stop it on our blog at
www.saveourwatershed.com. We look forward to your support.

Sincerely,

Friends of Egmont

Click here to watch the Skook Video from Effort.tv including information regarding the logging.

And incredibly majestic scene.


If you have been to Skook you know how beautiful it is and that its beauty is worth preserving. You can make a difference by sending a short email protesting the logging operation.

Thanks,

Spencer Cooke, Effort.tv

so last night i had a surreal dream that i was at the green race and it was at the new river dries. everyone was getting ready for the race but there was this huge wave that looked awesome but it was diagonal so nobody could stay on it in a play boat. i'm not sure why they were in play boats for the race. then, jud watkins shows up in his international surf boat and starts ripping it up, doing all sorts of stylish tail slashes and blunts. the many spectators were impressed. later on chris gragtmans and i were getting ready for the green race in some house upstream from the wave and i looked down and saw some other guy in an ic boat surfing it up on the wave. for some reason i think it was some older british guy. not sure who but the reason i think that is because he was in one of those double dutch ic boats. then things go even more weird. somehow chris and i ended up going paddling somewhere else and suddenly realized that we missed the green race. chris was devastated and i told him not to worry about it because he could just tell people that he decided to skip a race so that he could train up really good for the next year. i'm not sure if he bought that but he didn't argue. after that i was suddenly paddling out in a surf break. i kept paddling through waves and just making it past each one but i could never quite get to the outside of the break. there was some kind of machinery driving up and down the sidelines of the break. i think it was one of those machines that paints the lines on highways. there was a guy standing on the side of he machine looking down. anyway, it was weird that there were sidelines. suddenly i was on what seemed to be a football field, but there were still waves and i was still in the break. only now the waves were coming through the ground so when a swell was moving toward me it looked like the mound of dirt that flies up in front of bugs bunnie's head when he trowels through the ground just under the surface. or like that creature in the movie tremors. or you know when the space ship crashes at the end of the movie men in black and all that dirt is flying up in front of it. that's kind of what it looked like, and the waves were really huge. i was paddling my butt off trying to make it to the outside of the break. i wanted to surf one of these giants so badly. they were shaped perfectly and looks so beautiful, all covered in grass and dirt. meanwhile there was a sports team, i think it was football, practicing on the field as well. every wave that i made it by was followed by another even larger one. finally when i made it to the outside of the break the waves subsided and now they were rolling up the astro turf and closing the stadium. the last thing is that i was sitting at the top of some stairs in a house. i thought i was at the top of a wave about to drop in but i turned out to be this staircase. it was kind of a suburbia house, like in christmas vacation. so i'm sitting there and i asked somebody (maybe it was clark w griswold) if i could catch this last wave before they rolled up the carpet. they said yeah that's fine. so i decided to drop in but all i really did was slide down these carpeted stairs on my butt, bump bump bump bump bump. i guess i was surf kayaking, not board surfing because the sitting down part makes sense. i woke up this morning once i got to the bottom of the stairs. i was dreaming hard and for some reason all of this stuck with me today so i decided to write it down.

No more news on the turds. Joke is over. From now on, news whenever I want.

Happy Mothers day everyone. And what a way to celebrate mother's day than to fix a toilet. This piece in the back of our commode broke and I had to replace it. It is the part in the water tank that has that floaty thing on it with the water cutoff valve. You know what I'm talking about. Upon changing out the old part for the new one I made a wonderful discovery. Check out the name of this part...


Hey, it says it right there, plain as day. Toilet humor is my favorite.

The extreme kayaking market can only bear so many great product ideas, and this just happens to be one of them. The BRO DOLL! Yes, now available exclusively from Effort.tv, get your very own pro model BRO DOLL. Tired of hanging out alone without your bros, not any more now that you can buy a BRO DOLL. Be the first on your block to purshase BRO DOLL and show all the non-bros how cool it is to hang out with a bro... a BRO DOLL that is. BRO DOLLS start shpping as of May turd and will arrive at your doorstep fully ready to speak broisms and wear their hat sideways with the best of the bros. Get yours now!

Mion Footwear is an awesome new shoe company, started by the former owner of Keen, Mr Martin Keen. Though, do not be confused, Mion is not affiliated with Keen at all. Mion (My Own) is a brand new company and Martin Keen has created some incredible new designs. Mion is totally committed to the environment and to prove it they have gone carbon neutral, meaning they do not pollute. Part of the way they achieve this is by buying back green energy, using terrapass for all their rep vehicles, and more. As part of my relationship with Mion I provide kayaking video content online for the paddling community and consequently, for any and all visitors to the Mion site as well. Visit MionFootwear.com and you'll see this image after the homepage loads. I usually update this video once or twice a month with a brand new video. The URL always remains the same but the video changes monthly click HERE to see it


Chris Gragtmans and I headed down to the Ocoee last weekend for a demo day/river with Overflow Outfitters. Officially, this was a stop on the Riot "paddle with some fabulous guys" tour. Kevin Palmer from Overflow met up with us at the putin with a couple of his chaps from Northern Georgia. Anywho, we had a good ol time on the river then retreated to Ducktown or Copperhill for some Mexican cuisine. I believe it was Kevin who said, and I quote, "they should just cut out the middle man and just dump this food directly into the toilet." And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Overflow Outfitters is such a successful retail shop.
Here sat our dinner club while Chris told some campfire stories about wild and scenic Africa. Chris is here to learn and to entertain, not to make out with you.


James Trombley works at Diamond Brand in Asheville NC. Recently, James his his first loop, air flip, on a trip we took to the Nolichucky. He was psyched out of his gourd and his excitement is the inspiration for my newest video. Check it out. .
Here is James as happy as a lark...


Good buddy Cooper Lambla met us there and threw some of the nastiest space godzillas I've seen. Kid was absolutely going off the hook in the Astro 58. Tall, lanky, lightweight kid + short, high volume playboat = large air.


My friend Colin Kemp was with us on the Noli that day and I also took him over to Eternity hole for a session one evening. Colin works for Jackson Kayak and used to run a shop in DC called Valley Mill. Colin is 6'5" and 230 lbs. It is so awesome seeing a guy that large absolutely kill it in a play boat.

Our night session at Eternity. The water is coooooold and the kayakers were blurry they were moving so quickly.


Alas, the Green finally turned back on at 100% after almost two weeks of 60% or being shut down. Nathan Silsbee and I got out on the water a couple days and filmed some river running and down river freestyle in the Magnum and Thunder. The Magnum proves itself time and time again as a great creek boat and the Thunder is definitely on its way to doing the same as a playful creeker or beginner/intermediate river runner. The Riot Booster was one of Riot's most popular boats over the past few years until the Magnum and Thunder arrived. The popularity of the Booster's smooth and forgiving, yet surfy and playful hull inspired us to make the Thunder. People loved the way the Booster surfed and handled down river but wanted a larger, more creeky style deck, and the Thunder was born. I've paddled the boat a bit on the Green and at the US National Whitewater Center and thoroughly enjoyed it. I would highly recommend it, especially for the paddler who is beginning and wants something safe that they can grow into and not grow out of immediately. It's also perfect for the intermediate to advance creeker who enjoys class IV, Wilson Creek type of runs.
Here is Silsbee going for the freewheel off of the Groove Tube boof.

Silsbee running a smooth line at Sunshine


Once again, click HERE to see the new video featuring all the above topics. Visit my Youtube channel for all my archived videos youtube.com/kayakvideo

Later,

Spencer Cooke
Effort.tv

In an attempt to keep the feeling of Effort.tv's "news on the turds" alive I will be reporting on a rather appropriate topic today. Yes, here in Charlotte NC it's April twenty-turd... but everywhere else it's just a plain April twenty-third. I'm here at the US National Whitewater Center for a short visit.

As a sales rep I was privileged to use the exclusive employee restroom when I came across one of the funnier things about this place. I nearly peed my pants upon entering the restroom when I saw this sign beside the door. By the way, "peeing your pants is the coolest. Everybody my age pees their pants." So says Mr Madison anyway.

To me this sign says, "Come on in. We accept men, women and unusually small people or monkeys in wheelchairs." Or, "use the bathroom here if you are a giant man or woman or a normal sized person in a wheelchair." Whatever the meaning, those people a the USNWC need to get their heads Z-rayed.

Later Garrett Bryant and I celebrated our newfound, glorious, stupendous bathroom sign by eating an entire birthday cake and a dozen cheeseburgers. To explain Garrett's cast, he had a horrible birthday cake candle blowing out accident and broke his arm.


While I'm on the topic of hilarious, new, unusual and exotic signs, I was up in Boone NC last week when I visited my beloved Boone Baglery restaurant. To my delight they have banned smoking in their facility.


And that, boys and girls, is how to not get your head stuck in the rear end of an adult gorilla. The end.

Back in October Ray Cotton and Drew Hayes did a surf trip to Panama and found some large waves. They took one of my video cameras and got a few shots. Well, the footage wasn't that great but I was able to pull some still grabs from it so you can see the size of the stuff they were surfing... enormous.

Of course the normal tomfoolery was at hand. Driving across rivers way too fast in the rental vehicle.


And they probably yelled at those cows when they got close enough.


This is Ray. Drew was not available for a photo session. The last time he had his glamour shots done he swore he'd never step foot in front of a camera again. That silly puddy accident taught him a lesson.


That little thing at the top of the wave is Ray dropping in.


This was a quite impressive double-up wave that Drew managed to escape. Drew seems to be able to sprout wings out of his butt and fly out of some of the nastiest waves you've ever seen. I don't know how he does it. Scary. Sometimes Drew just sprouts the wings for no reason at all. He doesn't even have to be kayaking. I think he's just showing off his butt wings.





Maybe at some point they'll expand on the trip report but for now that's all I know. They did mention a couple really bad beatings and one swim that scared them pretty bad. Sounds like Panama in October is large and in charge.

Hi there freindzzzzzzzzzzzz. I've been thinking a lot about penguins lately.

"It's too damn hot for a penguin to be just walkin' around. I gotta send you back to the South Pole!"

Happy March Turdieth and welcome to Effort.tv,

People often ask me what I write first, the music or the lyrics, to which I reply, "Neither, I'm not a musician or a song writer." Actually, I only talk to dogs, cats and little people.

Now, this is some funny donkeylore... http://www.saludayakerz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2307

Speaking of the Saluda, here's some footage from there, plus more.

The Saluda River in Columbia SC is the best kept secret in play boating in the southeast. Tell someone about it, or tell them to go there and that it's great and all they says is, "oh yeah." Haha! It's hilarious, their one mile stretch is better play than any river around here and nobody acknowledges it. I love it. Then there's 1/4 mile hole at the Noli... incredible. Eternity hole on the Tuckaseegee is great too, probably one of the coolest man-made play spots ever. Enjoy the video from Jan-March 2007. Disclaimer: You may not want to watch this if you're a "creeker" or a "big play features only" kind of person. Make sure you're totally secure with lesser kayakers on "small" and "easy" play spots.


The holidays are beautiful this time of year. Seasons greetings,

Spencer Cooke, Effort Inc