Canoes are a bit archaic in modern terms, and more importantly, unsafe for paddling on anything beyond protected flat water... which excludes us from paddling on any coastal waters most of the time. Coastal waters make up 90% of the paddling opportunities in the Tampa Bay area.
Believe it or not, the most dangerous activity that we've provided for the past 20+ years is canoeing on coastal waterways. Canoes flip over very easily because, among other things, canoe seats are elevated to make paddling possible. This elevation creates a high center of gravity. Any slight movement the wrong way and the canoers become swimmers very quickly. Add choppy conditions, cool water, weaker upper body strength (to get back into the canoe), as well as inexperience and you have a dangerous life threatening situation in the blink of an eye. We've seen it too many times over the past 20 years.
The solution is kayaking. It's much more comfortable to most people. There is a low center of gravity and oftentimes a wider base which makes flipping out much harder and very rare compared to canoeing. While canoeing tends to be more frustrating to the average paddler kayaking tends to be more enjoyable. Kayaks are easily more desirable to most people than canoeing. That's important because desire oftentimes drives participation. Low desire = low participation.
GTD is currently acquiring a variety of quality kayaks: recreational, fishing, and touring kayaks. Both sit-in and sit-on-top kayaks. Both single and tandem kayaks. Our goal is to have enough kayaks to take 50+ paddlers out at a time. That allows us to accommodate large youth groups, church staffs, businesses, and high school class trips. And the variety of types of kayaks allows us to offer a variety of different trips & courses: recreational, overnight, short & long distance, fishing outings, and more.
This is something we've been wanting to do for the past 23 years (since the beginning of GTD) and it looks like now is the right timing for us as we head into our 24th year of ministry.
Currently we have about 15 kayaks. Let us know if you have a kayak you want to donate. Many times people purchase kayaks and end up not using them like they thought they would. They oftentimes sit in the garage collecting dust for years. GTD can use that kayak if you would like to donate it!
Also, we are finding great used kayaks for sale at an average price of under $200! Many times these are kayaks that were originally purchased for over $500 and have great add-on's such as fishing rod holders, paddles, and life jackets included in the price which saves us more money because we don't have to go purchase those things separately.
Donating a kayak (or other needed item) to GTD is another GREAT WAY to support this ministry! Let us know if you would like to donate a kayak =)
Thank you!!!
Going The Distance Adventure Ministry
God-awesome adventures since 1996!
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