My paddle

Serious paddlers are serious about their paddles. Me? I spent $30 on my Grey Owl Dragon Boat club paddle, and I’m perfectly pleased with it. It’s not carbon fiber light, but it isn’t as heavy as standard loaner paddles either. More importantly, it’s aesthetically better than the loaner paddles, because the wood is maintained shiny and clean, without warped sides or splinters sticking out. Plus, it’s personalized, with my hand-traced black Asian dragon drawing on one side of the blade.

I got my paddle as part of a group buy with my Vancouver team, Team Vortex, a spontaneous purchase because if I really wanted to invest in my “paddling career”, I probably should have put that money towards a life jacket. Nonetheless, I bought my paddle and I think it’s great. I haven’t paddled without my paddle for over four years, even checking it into special cargo when I brought it over from Vancouver to Toronto. (Note here that the WestJet luggage handlers not only “lost” my paddle for a couple of hours, they also scratched it! Darn them!)

The first thing that I did when I bought my paddle was personalize it. This is definitely the most fun part of owning a paddle. I found an amazing image of a calligraphic dragon that I enlarged and then hand-traced to my paddle. I just used a permanent wood-marker to do it, and my dragon is still intact to this day. (Note that at the same time, I also did a hand-tracing of Trogdor the Burninator on my friends' paddle, but because of its fine lines, some of the ink has scratched off in the last four years).

Personally, I think that recreational paddlers should never buy carbon composite paddles, unless they get one for free or some great deal. At least don’t spend more than fifty bucks on a paddle. It’s really unnecessary, and a bit pretentious. It’s the same feeling I get when I see a 16 year old kid driving a Ferrari or something.