Texas is motorboat country. One need only look at the Jet Skis and metal-flecked speedboats swarming over Lake Houston to know that. Still, as the 13th Annual Southwestern Canoe Rendezvous proves, there are some folks who think boating is about finding harmony in nature, not conquering it outright.
The most harmonious members of the paddling crowd don’t even need white water to satisfy their need for speed — a good thing, since most Texas rivers are flat, wide, brown and painfully meandering. These wilderness trekkers are happiest with a peaceful five-day trip down the Colorado River.
They know that taking a kayak straight down the side of a mountain during the spring thaw — an adrenaline-junkie sport called steep creeking — is by no means the only paddling sport that requires substantial skill. And despite what you may have gleaned from old Flipper reruns, many tricks of the trade are counterintuitive. For instance, if your canoe capsizes in the middle of the lake, you don’t necessarily have to drag it back to shore. You can empty out the water by turning the vessel upside down and pulling it perpendicularly over the middle of another canoe.
These are the sort of tips you can pick up in the over 40 classes and clinics at the Canoe Rendezvous. Classes include such diverse offerings as Sea Kayak Dancing, Canoeing for Lazy Paddlers, Trip Planning and “Got a Dutch Oven? Now What?” The rendezvous also provides ample opportunity to try out the latest motor-free boating gear for all types of paddling sports. There will even be a used-equipment lot to browse. Careful, though. This is an addictive sport. Once you trade in that Jet Ski to buy an old aluminum Grumman canoe, it won’t be long before you have a garage full of carbon-fiber boats that cost more than an import car.
This article appears in Oct 4-10, 2001.