Our buddy Hiro loves to spend his downtime on the water. He works at Pearl Trading Company, Japan’s premier supplier of paddlesports gear, and he’s also an accomplished kayaker of many disciplines. One of the newest subcultures of kayaking is the blending of two sports: kayaking and fishing, which I hear is a ton of fun. Hiro is one of the founding fathers of Japanese Kayak Fishing and as you can see by his photo below, he’s just about got it dialed.

Another impressive subculture of kayaking is Squirt Boating. which has also become quite popular in Hiro’s homeland. Each year, squirt boating legend Jim Snyder makes his annual pilgrimage to Japan, accompanied by a “guest of honor.” The growth in popularity of squirt boating all over the world can be attributed to Jim and his amazing boat designs and technique. This year he invited our good friend Paul Bartholic from Asheville to join him on the journey. Paul (aka “Buddha”) was able to snag a video camera for the trip and he captured some pretty cool images of what hanging out in Japan is like. So check out this short video of Jim, Paul, and their friends from Japan. Musical score is compliments of DJ Phidelity.

-Bryan

A sick video of our boyz Jared Sieler and Dave Fusilli going big in South America…

Thank god for LVM. Actually, I don’t know if God had much to do with it. We should probably be more thankful to Daniel DeLavergne, Spencer Cooke and John Grace… Either way, as much as we’d want to be out there paddling with all of our homies whenever it rains, we’re usually here at the Astral office helping our customers and coming out with new designs. Luckily, we have LVM TV to give us recent updates of days of paddling we may have missed. Check out this most recent update starring Astral Divas Robin Betz and Adriene Levknecht. Here’s the link: LVM TV

By the way, I was really digging the music on the update. It’s a band from Raleigh called “A Rooster For The Masses”. Check them out on their Myspace page

Well, I better get back to work now…

Peace,

Yonton

I just wanted to send you a quick update about a waterfall that I was able to run in Alabama last Thursday. Here is the link to the blog post about the drop:

Team Riot Blog - DeSoto Falls

I have really enjoyed working with all of you this past year as an athlete and representative for Astral, and I look forward to another great year in 2008. I hope you’re doing well, and I’ll be in touch!

Sincerely,

Chris Gragtmans

We just received an email from our buddy Pat Keller. He has been working with some images from a recent high water decent of the Raven’s Fork here in NC and here’s what he had to say about it:

situation: top of mike tysons at approx. 24 in (may have dropped down to about 21…but still high as %#@*) only minutes before we discovered the log in the bottom of said rapid… from left: Joe Barkley, Caleb Paquette, Toby McDermott
hope yall likey
pat

hey bryan, so the trip has started well with me getting food poisoning the first night in CD Valles but whilst i was ling in bed the nextday the boys namely jonny meyers and ian mclaren fired but the giant saltos slide!! sorry no pictures but lots of video for the next LVM. with a day of rest and time to contemplate I decided to fired off the first descent of the left side of the Micos putin drop… a 20ft slide strtaight off a 60ft drop into almost complete green water. so after a week here of hanging around the Micos and firing up a couple of the big ones we are know just waiting for Chris Gragtmans and Pat Keller to arrive whilst resting our bodys. the injury count so far is… Jonny Meyers. busted up left elbow possibly out for the whole trip. Ian Mclaren. Cut finger. Lawrance Simpson. Messed up ear from landing funny.

anyway bro peace out nd i´ll check back again soon

lawrance

paddler: Pat Keller runs some Italy action

photo: Timo Koester

see more of Pat’s Italy trip in the Astral Expedition Gallery

So, I know this is pretty outdated, but I had all these photos from my trip up to the worlds. I figured I might as well share them with the world. Besides, this will give people a little bit of an insight into what goes on at kayaking events. And it’s actually a pretty good description of what goes on at any paddling trip and I don’t care what kind or what level paddler you are. The 2007 Freestyle world championships was a super fun event. It was great to meet up with so many old friends and meet so many new friends. I hope you all enjoy this little album.

Peace,

Yonton.

We just got an email from Lawrance Simpson, Astral Team member and one of the main forces behind HuckZeGnar… What is this HuckZeGnar you may ask? Well, they’re a group of paddlers based out of the Arkansas River Valley in Colorado. They make some pretty cool hats that are hand knitted and perfect for this time of year. They also fire up some pretty sick drops in the land of manky-mank. I think that they use the extra money from their hat sales to fund their boating habits. This crew is a lot of fun off the river too, having introduced us to games like “Edward 40 Hands” and “Ride the Flamingo”…
Here’s what Lawrance had to say about getting ready for his trip to Mexico:

hey boys,

so jonny meyers and i leave for mexico tomorrow!!! austin rathman is picking us up here in CB and then we shall drive for something like 50hours down into mexico!! it’s gonna be insane!! i wont be taking my laptop due to the sketch factor of MX but i’m sure we will visit plenty of internet cafe to send away updates!!

peace

–
L C Simpson
-Kayaker

Shane (Benedict) and I went to see the Southern Culture on the Skids SCOTS show on Saturday night. SCOTS is one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen and I definitely make it goal to see them whenever they come through town. This time the “Gore Gore Girls” played the opening show. The Gore Gore Girls were mostly impressive in their amazingly tacky getup, which included matching guitars and amps, matching boots and incredibly short pleather/vinyl dresses. Besides, what’s not to like about a band that wrote a song about Astral, man?

Ya’ll should just check this out: AstralMan

Happy Holidays!

Yonton.

As well all know, the holidays bring a lot of gadgets to the consumer market and this is a good time to take a look at the Electronics Industry to see what they are doing to control “e-waste” which include known toxins like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs). Also, do you ever think about taking a look at a given company’s producer responsibility or take back programs to see what they are doing with discarded products like used cell phones. Do these companies provide any type of consumer information about the products they offer? Check out the Greener Electronics Guide from Greenpeace for the beta. Happy Holidays!