Water Activities
Archive
Most dogs don't like being left on shore and will follow their handler right in. You just need to be willing to get wetand to take things slow.
Travis Winn, a 29-year-old river guide based in Kunming, is working to bring people from Chinas growing cities out to see the last remaining wild river in the country and, in doing so, martial their support for protecting it from a series of proposed dams
When the Bounty went down during Hurricane Sandy, millions watched on TV as the Coast Guard rescued 14 survivorsbut couldnt save the captain and one of his crew. A huge question lingered in the aftermath: what was this vessela leaking replica built in 1960 for the film Mutiny on the Bountydoing in the eye of the storm?
The surfing legend is not entirely sure where that number came from or how accurate it is"I don't measure waves," he told usbut he is sure of one thing: This was one of the most dangerous situations he's ever been in
Pipeline protest. Photo: Dogwood Initiative Amid an increasingly conservative Canadian government focused on exploiting the land’s resources, the country’s indigenous people have risen up through a grassroots protest movement called Idle No More. The Idle No More protest movement was…
Photo: Flickr/Boklm Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that an expansion plan for Homewood Mountain Resort on the shores of Lake Tahoe would not be allowed to move forward without further considering a scaled-back alternative with less environmental impact. The Sierra…
The discovery of a potential new source of the Amazon River sparked a good old-fashioned explorers race to be the first to run it
Every morning for the past 17 years, Pete and Val have been swimming together at the local pool. Every year on June 12, they racetwo laps, up and back. That's all. Two Laps was written and directed by Owen Trevor and shot at North Narrabeen Beach in Sydney, Australia, for…
The finished productwith super slow mo footage of thousands of pounds of falling water, the tap of falling raindrops, and kayakers winding through tight slotsis polished. But the nine-day filmmaking trip to Mexico was anything but smooth. Everything started when kayaker Erik Boomer and photographer Tim Kemple called filmmaker…
Ocean rowing, once an adventure sideshow, is on the rise thanks to new technology that has made record-setting crossings easierand high-stakes rescues inevitable
Inside OAR Northwest's state-of-the-art, 30-foot Woodvale Ocean 4 rowboat, the James Robert Hanssen
Scientists previously thought that the smooth, hairless surfaces of fingers and toes wrinkled up like raisins after they got wet because water passed into the outermost layer of skin, causing it to swell. But recent studies have shown that the wrinkling is not a result of osmosis, but rather an…
In 2010, visual artist Sue Austin received a grant from Arts Council Englands Impact Fund that allowed her to transform her wheelchair into a propelled, finned, scuba-tank-outfitted craft suited for underwater exploration. She designed it so that she could move the foot pedals…
Whitewater kayakers Erik Boomer, Tyler Bradt, and Galen Volckhausen joined adventure filmmakers Tim Kemple, Anson Fogel, Blake Hendrix, and Skip Armstrong on a trip to a remote jungle in Mexico to find the ultimate waterfall.
There are a lot of firsts nowadays, and Erden Eruc's voyage was the first thing to inspire Jonah Ogles in a while
In 1950, a young Australian mining engineer named Ben Carlin set out to do the impossible: circumnavigate the globe, by land and sea, in a single vehicle. In Half-Safe, the latest story from The Atavist, James Nestor sets out to uncover Carlin's fate and fin
Working on a tiger shark. Photo: Carl Meyer For 19 years, University of Hawaii scientist Carl Meyer has caught sharks up and down the Hawaiian archipelago, a…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=8sjl73iyugs This week on 窪蹋勛圖厙 Lab, we've featured dispatches on shark attacks, shark science, and shark conservation. Attitudes toward the marine predators have come a long way since 1934, when filmmakers recorded a shark being caught by a Goodyear Tires blimp near Fisher Island, Florida.
Great white shark. Photo: Yuri Arcurs/Shutterstock Most people know George Burgess as the kahuna of shark attacks. For more than 20 years, Burgess has overseen the…
Paul Watson. Photo: Tim Watters/Sea Shepherd Over the last three decades, most of the chases involving Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson have occurred on the high seas. Hes usually the…
Eric Hansen gets a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of a project to surf in each of India's states, nevermind that 21 (of 28) are landlocked and that the coastline is known for little more than ankle-slappers
Lots of surfers take pride in spending as little as possible on a wetsuit. What do you get if you spend more? In the best cases, exactly what you pay for.
Photo: Ian Swanson Beach hazards abound. Your surfboard can knock you out. Corals might scrape your face off. A shark could mistake you for a seal or, more likely, you might bump into a jellyfish. Those are risks most of us willingly accept. But when…
Waves for Water founder Jon Rose has been on the East Coast since Hurricane Sandy struck, cutting through red tape and providing disaster relief alongside a groundswell of surfers
Most flip-flops arent very high-tech. That's just the nature of this kind of footwear. Unless theyre being made by Olukai. That company's Kia'i II flip was researched and developed with the Hawaiian Lifeguard Association. A hand-picked group of elite guardsfrom Oahu, Maui,…
Even at 75, Ray Ives still has the pluck to don a dive suit made in 1900 to plumb the depths around England for treasure. The Brit, who began work as a commercial diver in 1965, is retired now, but still a dab hand at fishing up old weapons, ship…
Jacob Beck-Jaffurs. Photo: Professional Pathways On Friday, March 11, 2011, 24-year-old freediver Jacob Beck-Jaffurs was found unconscious on the ocean floor by a dive partner off the coast of Kawera Island, New Zealand. He had been spearfishing when he…
Bikini Atoll, a tiny ring of islands halfway between Hawaii and Australia, is a world-class diving destination and home to one of the Pacific's last great fishing grounds. So where are all the tourists? Welcome to heaven on earth, where the vestiges of hell lie just below the surface.
Lees Ferry is the only place within Glen Canyon where visitors can drive to the Colorado River in over 700 miles of Canyon Country, right up to the first "rapid" in the Grand Canyon. Here at the very start of the Grand Canyon, adventurous river runners launch…
Looking for which candidate's economic beliefs are best suited to the present day? Wondering who's better suited to take office should the next president become incapacitated? Well, you've come to the wrong place.
Andrew Badenoch raised nearly $10,500 via Kickstarter to fund his zero-fuel Arctic adventure, but he abandoned his trip and left his backers in the dark. Andrew Badenoch. Photo: Joe Bell Back in February, I wrote about Andrew Badenoch, an ambitious…
Several weeks ago I posted a story here about an overnight family raft trip on the Rio Grande we took with our friends and their 10-month-old daughter. The story sparked a heated debate. Readers called me irresponsible, negligent, and stupid for taking our daughters (two and four)…
Artists often find inspiration in their environment. It turns out, sometimes, product managers do too. Heres the story: One of New Surf Project's (NSP's) product managers rides his bike by a coconut farm on his way to work at NSPs factory every day. One day…
Russ Ricketts' money shot. Watch more river snorkeling videos here. We all want to capture a money shot, whether that is literally a photograph, or a video, or a perfectly baked apple pie or a novel or a painting. Sometimes everything just comes…
We're pretty committed to covering the newest, most innovative gear here on The Gear Shed, but every now and then there is a product, out for a while, that has evolved over time to set the standard in its class that we feel is deserving of a mention. Such is…
“Frozen.” Photo: Mark Tipple, The Underwater Project There's a lot about Australian Mark Tipple's career as a photographer that appears backwards. Take, for example, his beginnings. The…
EPSON DSC picture Larry Gibson, keeper of Kayford Mountain. Photo: Vivian Stockman The Appalachian Mountains lost a hero on Sunday, September 10. Larry Gibson, the face of the fight against mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia, died of a heart attack while…
An adventure into the world of big wave surfing with Aussie legend Ross Clarke-Jones and two-time World Champion Tom Carroll. Read our Q&A with the filmmakers.
Michael Lewis, President Barack Obama. Photo: Official White House Photograph/Pete Souza Reporter Michael Lewis followed President Barack Obama for six months in order to write the profile “Obama's Way.” At its core, the Vanity Fair story is a…
Conundrum Hot Springs party people, mid-August. Photo: Will McGough By Will McGough, Wake and Wander Sitting in the nearly 100-degree water, among several naked bathers in the Conundrum Hot Springs near Aspen, Colorado, I looked around at the pine…
Im staying at a cabin outside of Lake Placid, New York, for a short vacation. What should I do in the Adirondacks while Im there?
Grizzly print, and a notebook. Photo: 窪蹋勛圖厙rs and Scientists for Conservation Rachel Carson earned a master's degree in zoology from John Hopkins University and spent most of her career working as a marine biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife…
The final episode of Forge Motion Pictures and NRS’s summer series on icons of the water is about 68-year-old Grand Canyon guide Rob Elliott.
In an effort to assert their authenticity and iconic status, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and ONeill are teaming up on a full line of clothing and accessories made by ONeill and plastered with PBR logos. Board shorts, tees, coolers,…
I started taking fly-fishing lessons earlier this year, and Im already starting to get the bugso to speakfor the sport. What are your favorite fly-fishing rivers in the Northeast?
Tsunami debris. Photo: Stiv Wilson By Stiv Wilson, 5 Gyres Institute Out across a plastic stratified strand, two surfers, silhouetted in the failing light, are finishing a session. A year and half ago, this wasnt a surf spot. A tsunami destroyed everything…
What made Katie Heaney feel like a combination of Pocahontas and Jesus Christ? Standing on a board and holding a paddle.
Chinook salmon. Photo: NWFishers/Flickr The Elwha Dam is gone. The Glines Canyon Dam is nearly gone. With the dams no longer blocking fish from their migratory route up the river, Chinook (king) and other species of salmon and trout are returning. Salmon fry…
Mississippi River south of Memphis, August 2011. Photo: NASA Mississippi River south of Memphis, August 2012. Photo: NASA A drought that has led to low water levels in…
Quadruple amputee Philippe Croizon has completed the last portion of his great adventure, swimming from America to Asia.
Sea turtle hatchling, Baguan Island, Philippines. Photo: Keith Ellenbogen Examples of poor ocean health are too easyunfortunatelyto find in many parts of the world, especially along densely populated coastlines or in the midst of ocean gyres filled with plastic pollution. But what is…
Big wave surfer Shane Dorian took home the Waterman of the Year Award during the Surf Industry Manufacturer's Association's (SIMA) annual Waterman's Weekend on August 10…
I picked up the following video of off Krulwich Wonders, a science blog by NPR's Robert Krulwich. He doesn't ruin the surprise on his post, so I won't either. Mark Peters and his friends headed 20 miles west of…
Quadruple amputee Philippe Croizon takes on some of the boldest open-water crossings of all time
The South Fork of the Skykomish, just above Sunset Falls. Photo: Mary Catherine O'Connor When I lived for a short time in Index, Washington, a climbing and boating hotspot on the Skykomish River in the north central Cascades, it felt like equal parts…
Weve already published a couple of reviews from Andrew Forsthoefel, our gear tester who is walking all the way from his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, to the West Coast. Andrew has now made it past Santa Fea full 2,400 miles from his starting point. Hes walked the equivalent of…
In 2002, Philip Curry, the designer behind Patagonia's now-discontinued Lotus line of lifejackets, decided to get back into the PFD business. He founded Astral Buoyancy to create the highest-quality product possible with cutting-edge design…
The Arctic is getting warmer and sea ice is covering less and less area every year. This is good news for at least one group of men, adventurers looking to put their names in the record books. Two weeks ago we profiled the start of the…
Plying the Icicle River, Washington. Photo: Leah Ricketts By Russ Ricketts It all started innocently enough. My friend Matt told me about snorkeling with the salmon in our local rivers in the Cascade Mountains. His epic tales of huge fish, deep pools and fast currents held…
Matt From London/Flickr The 2012 Olympics kicked off on Saturdayif you don't count soccer, which you shouldand a lot of things happened. It's not easy to keep up with it all, especially since NBC's streams have been especially screwy, so here are the…
Captain Don Voss, marine pollution from a diver's POV. Photos: Marine Cleanup Initiative, Inc. When he returned, wounded, from serving in Vietnam, doctors told Don Voss he wouldn't walk again. But Voss, now a 64-year-old ship captain, turned to swimming as therapy. With more…
The best way to beat record high temperatures: spend as much time in the water as possible. Here are a few items to be showcased at the Outdoor Retailer show meant to help enhance your ocean experience. BELLYAK FREQUENCY A speedy rotomolded plastic bodyboat designed for joyriding rivers, oceans…
SLYC sailing. Photo: Katie Arnold For the past three weeks, Ive been writing these columns from my parents cottage in Ontario. My mother grew up on the lake, and Ive been coming every summer since I was born. In the 60 years since my grandparents bought…
The latest film in the Of Souls+Water series profiles surfer Christopher Peterson. For more, check out this interview with series director Skip Armstrong, of Forge Motion Pictures .
Whether youre catching a wave, splashing in the nearest stream, or chilling at the beach, if youre a Patagonia fan, youll soon have eight new styles of board shorts in 45 different color combinations to wear for the occasion. Athlete-approved from the barrels of Hawaii to the…
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?height=360&deepLinkEmbedCode=V0b3lnNTqvwnTA48yjrTaHCXPXlsLfrO&embedCode=V0b3lnNTqvwnTA48yjrTaHCXPXlsLfrO&width=640&video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK" In the latest video from the series Of Souls+Water, director Skip Armstrong and producer Anson Fogel profile river surfer Christopher Peterson. Peterson grew up on the North Shore of Hawaii and found himself fighting for everything in his life, from…
A new documentary from Walking on Water films looks at the life of blind surfer Derek Rabelo.
Stephanie Gilmore wins fifth ASP World Surfing Title. Photo: ASP/Damien Poullenot Surfer Stephanie Gilmore secured her fifth ASP women's world title after beating out 19-year-old Tyler Wright in the finals of the…
Never worry about being stuck in the wilderness with nothing to eat againas long as there is a healthy river nearby. Last year, Washington State-basedFikkes introduced the worlds first fishing pole/trekking pole. The contraption houses a fishing rod blank inside a hollow aluminum trekking pole. With just…
If there is a lifelist for snorkeling, Palau's Jellyfish Lake has to be on it. Tourists can swim through the upper levels of the water as millions of golden jellyfish migrate across the marine lake following the sun. They swim east in the…
In the northwest corner of Spain, in the coastal region of Galicia, fishermen boat into fjord-like inlets called rias and rappel from slick rocks to collect gooseneck barnacles in crashing surf. They hang down in pairs and watch each other's backs…
The loud and awestruck reaction of the people on the dock makes this video. It would be easy to make fun of their excited cries of shark in a dismissive wayWho let the double rainbow guy on the dock? We know, it's a shark. etc. but there's something that's…
In the video Fiji Part One, Australian Matt Wilkinson gives the impression that the life of a surfer is all coconuts and sun bathing and waves. Around the same time Wilkinson was promoting this easy image, countryman…
Brought to you by Mark Thatcher, the guy who invented Teva's, Sazzis are sandals with individual toes cut into the sole. It's kind of like Vibram's Five Finger concept: Let your toes work independently and you get more traction, stability and agility on awkward…
A St. Petersburg man recently kitesurfed into a jump over a pier during tropical storm Debby. The YouTube clip is making the rounds online, from the Huffington Post to Grind TV. Anyone watching the video with any…
The third episode in Forge Motion Picture's series of Souls and Water features whitewater kayaker Ben Marr surfing waves at night. Click here to find out how the crew got the light on the boat at night.
窪蹋勛圖厙 reviews the best adventure gear for mans best friend.
Cramming a whole lotta adventure into one day doesn't have to be a sufferfest. Photo: Katie Arnold We recently took the kids to see a Brazilian jazz band perform outside at our local college on a hill above town. You can probably picture the scene: Everyone…
New footage from Forge Motion Pictures of the North Fork Championships, where the world’s best kayakers competed on Idaho’s big-water classic, the Payette.
If youre like most people, your summer strategy probably looks like this: Dispatch the kids to day camp while you spend the sweetest season behind your desk. But research shows that while children may be quicker studies, adults benefit hugely from learning new things, too. Good news: Now you can…