Every Wednesday night, from start to end of Daylight Saving’s Time, dozens of kayakers and canoers gather at Bloedel Donovan Park on Lake Whatcom to socialize and RACE! The race follows a 3.5-mile course around the edge of the lake in “Basin 1″ as it’s called. If you’re new, it’ll take you a time or [...]

We spent Sunday up at the Tour De Indian Arm in Deep Cove BC at the second and final race of the THINK International Surfski Challenge. The Challenge, created 3 years ago as an informal competition between neighboring British Columbia and Bellingham / Seattle surfski communities. In the competition, Canada and the US each have 10 surfskis per [...]

Heather and I train on Lake Whatcom about 80% of the time. It’s five minutes from our house and honestly: we just love paddling there. If Bellingham Bay is our front yard then Lake Whatcom is our living room. It’s sooo comfy and familiar. So when the 13-mile Lake Whatcom Classic rolls around each spring, [...]

With Bellingham and our Canadian friends across the border having some of the most AWESOME surfski race scenes in the world, someone decided a little friendly competition was in order. Thus, the THINK Kayak International Challenge was created. Two races: one in Bellingham, one in BC. We each bring as many racers as we can [...]

It was me and Larry B. Larry B and me. Gusty 30 MPH winds combined with sub 40 degree temps seemed to have scared away all but the hard core this mid-April Wednesday Nighter. Reivers? Paul? Where is our posse? Jeff H, Eric W and Joost represented the ‘A Team’ surfski posse. And Larry G [...]

Sleek surfski’s and light weight paddle blades slice through the water silently as the sounds labored breathing and the occasional bumping of paddle-on-paddle, boat-on-boat or paddle-on-boat fill the air. It is  Wednesday Night… and I am surrounded by my race posse having an awesome time! There are 7 of us, and we are in our [...]

Last night marked the return of the much-loved, heavily relied-upon, painful-for-most (this time of year, anyway), but truly THE staple of all Bellingham racers’ training diet: The Weekly Wednesday Night 3.5-mile Race on Lake Whatcom, out of Bloedel Donovan Park. The weather was invitingly warm, calm and clear for this time of year in the [...]

In Bellingham, if you find yourself wearing a goofy, green costume while running elbow-to-elbow in a half-mile-long river of cheering runners, or jumping into arctic-cold Lake Padden in nothing but your swimsuit in mid-winter while surrounded by 100′s of other ridiculously enthusiastic people doing the exact same thing — chances are, City of Bellingham Parks [...]

First, gather 158 single and double blade race boats, a row boat, a pedal boat, a flotilla of touring boats, stand up paddle boards and a couple traditional paddleboards. Then flip a coin.Heads, you get 30 knot gusts, over-head wind waves and El Nino ground swell finding its way from the deep, mid-Pacific, all serving [...]

“Cloudy with a chance of light rain and snow. Highs in the mid 30s to lower 40s. Southeast wind to 10 mph in the morning becoming light. “First snow of the winter is scheduled for Saturday. It wouldn’t be right if the weather Gods didn’t throw something fun at us for the Annual Deception Pass [...]

Holy Moly… 111 racers have already signed up for the Dec 12th Deception Pass Dash! This year will be the first year for Paddle Boarders to be entered in the race.It is a fun, beautiful, and potentially gnarly course. If you are up for the challenge… register by Nov 28. If you wait prices go [...]

The Deception Pass Dash in the gnarliest paddling race of the year. It happens in early December with typically freezing air temps, freezing water temps, rain and/or snow, wind, waves (6 feet in ’08!), boiling eddy fences, bull kelp, barely submerged rocks, and all of it spread over one of the most technically challenging pieces [...]