Life, Cancer, Near Death & Paddling!

It’s been a long cold winter here at Umingmaq Paddle Touring Center. Not in the literal sense, but much more in the figurative sense. My life-long paddling partner, and wife, was diagnosed with Breast Cancer late last October. At first it seemed that she had caught it extremely early, since she is so good about keeping up with her routine medical check-ups (Even during the pandemic). We thought her treatment would be quite short and minimally-invasive, but 2020 had a way of twisting the easy road into an arduous and torturous route.

After some good news at the beginning (small mass, no genetic markers for future issues), we learned that the cancer had reached her lymph nodes, so dreams of the shorter treatment route evaporated and were replaced with another surgery, 20 weeks of Chemotherapy and then 5-8 weeks of radiation therapy (All with the promise of destroying her immune system during a global pandemic).

EVERYTHING, except my wife’s treatment and taking care of the family, went into a further pause mode! As if the freaking pandemic hadn’t been enough of a pause! My efforts with the paddle shop, basically, came to a standstill. Hence the lack of blog posts or marketing most of last fall, winter and even early this spring.

We have been lucky in many ways as my wife is fairly young, strong and has maintained a great mental attitude going through the hard part. She has a good prognosis for recovery, which is more than some (many) can say when facing a cancer diagnosis. So, with her last Chemo treatment in the rearview mirror as of last Wednesday, we are moving forward as a family. My wife will still have radiation therapy for another 5-8 weeks, but that should be a walk in the park compared to a Chemotherapy treatment referred to as “The Red Devil!”

So, here we are in April of 2021 after weathering a global pandemic, Breast Cancer and…Did I mention that my Mom and Dad were in a life threatening car crash last November when they were driving down to bring my wife a care package after her diagnosis. Both my Mom and Dad suffered severe, life threatening injuries after they rolled their pick-up on some icy roads. They are now on the mend, getting mobile again after their recovery and vaccinations! 2020 was bad for many, we had our share of tribulations, but everyone in our family is alive and improving, so we have a lot to be thankful for.

Where was I? oh yes! April 2021 at Umingmaq Paddle Touring Center: We are on the rise after the low point (Hopefully) and are excited about a lot of great stuff happening at the paddle shop! You, our customers, have kept the shop going and growing strong!

Just a sneak peak at some of the exciting news:

Feelfree Kayaks: Our first order of 22 light touring boats and a few special order fishing kayaks has pretty much sold out in about two weeks, but we do have a few Aventura 140 and 125’s left in stock. We will have a new shipment coming in late June or early July.

Tiderace Sea Kayaks: We received our first container direct to the shop last January and it is fantastic to report that we’ve sold several of the new colors and layups in the various models we brought in. We still have a fair selection in stock.

Tiderace Container: We will be bringing in another container at the end of the summer (likely September or October). If you have a dream lay-up or color combo in mind, let us know, we will be offering a container pre-order discount on all models, layups and colors.

H2O Canoes: We are now the sole US dealer for H2O Canoes and while we have four high end layups available at the shop in four models, we understand that you may know exactly what you want for your forever boat:

Come in and demo one of these fantastic boats

• Prospector 16’4″ Pro-Lite Basalt Innegra Epoxy (39 lbs with Kevlar skid plates)
• Prospector 17’6″ Pro-Lite Kevlar/Carbon Epoxy (41 lbs with Kevlar skid plates)
• Boundary 17’6″ Pro-Lite Carbon Innegra Epoxy (38 lbs with Kevlar skid plates and sliding bow seat)
• Super Cruiser 18’6″ Pro-Lite Kevlar Epoxy (45 pounds with red Mylar color layer, large floatation tanks, sliding bow seat and Kevlar skid plates)

With the myriad of options offered by H2O Canoe in their excellent Epoxy layups, we will be placing special orders for a fall shipment of H2O Canoes. If you’re looking for your ultra light and ultra tough forever canoe that will take you to distant horizons contact us today.

The Super Cruiser listed/shown above (Red) is one of our family boats and we have been paddling it quite a bit. It is a fantastic boat and will be much tougher than the NorthStar Canoes Northwind 18 it has replaced, since it is built with Epoxy instead of Vinylester Resin. It will also be a fantastic boat for a big family trip we have planned for the summer (THE ENTIRE SUMMER) of 2022. But more on that later!

I hope you have all weathered the global pandemic as well as can be expected! And now that we are winning the race against the newest variants with vaccines you are all dreaming of the paddling adventures on the horizon! I know we are.

There is so much to catch you up on, but I don’t want to go on too long here.

Let is know if you need any great gear!

~Umingmaq