Canoeing

By Kadence Buchanan

If you've never tried canoeing before then it's high time that you did. Basically, canoeing is an outdoor activity that involves paddling a canoe or kayak either as recreation, transportation or as a sport. Enthusiasts stress that canoeing only uses a paddle to propel your kayak or canoe and human muscle power, nothing more.

There are differences in the way one propels a canoe and a kayak. To propel a kayak, one uses a paddle with two blades and where the paddler sits with their legs directly in front of them. To propel a canoe, one uses either single or double bladed paddles and the paddler kneels or sits on a raised seat.

There are many forms of recreational canoeing. In fact, there are now hybrid canoes as well. Among the more popular forms of recreational canoeing are the following:

Whitewater canoeing. As the name indicates, this refers to paddling down whitewater rivers for fun. There are different difficulty levels for whitewater canoeing, including for short and long trips as well as extreme expeditions on raging torrents. This is the most practiced form of kayaking these days.

Sea Kayaking is recreational kayaking on the sea and covers short day trips to year-long expeditions. It also includes canoeing in heavy seas and tidal currents. Its main difference is that is requires navigational skills.

There are also playboating (surfing while performing tricks), canoe camping (a combination of canoeing and camping), wave skiing (using a craft that's just a little bigger than a surfboard), surf skiing (using a longer craft that maneuvers well on breaking waves) and white water rafting (features a group of people paddling a large inflatable raft down a river).

As a sport, canoeing is governed by the International Canoe Federation, which creates the standard rules for the different disciplines of canoe competition. There are only two canoe sports included in the Olympic Games, Sprint and Slalom. Among the other canoe sports disciplines are the marathon, canoe polo, whitewater racing, dragon boat racing, playboating, extreme racing., outrigger canoe racing and canoe surfing.

My friends and I are eager to try white water rafting one of these weeks. We’ve already picked out a downhill river and it looks pretty wild.

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