Kingfisher Closed on July 4th

Kingfisher Paddleventures will be closed July 4th in observance of Independence Day. We wish everyone a safe and fun-filled celebration!

United States Navy Colorguard photo - Kingfisher will be closed July 4th

Happy Birthday, USA!

We will be open for July 3rd, and business operations will resume the full schedule on July 5th. You can make reservations online or call us at 912-230-4323

If you’re looking for something to do on the 4th, we recommend checking out any of the events listed on the Golden Isles Calendar of Events. There are several places to catch some live music, see fireworks, and grab a bite to eat. The difficult part is choosing which of the available options you want to try first!

Mother’s Day 2018 Promotion: Moms Paddle Free!

Check out our Mother’s Day 2018 promotion!

Moms paddle free Mother’s Day 2018!

mother's day 2018 promotion - moms paddle free

Looking for the perfect gift for your mom? Then take advantage of this Mother’s Day 2018 promotion and give her an experience that will create memories you both cherish for years to come! Our paddleboard and kayak tours are unique experiences that any nature lover or outdoor enthusiast will enjoy. Check out our complete product line and choose the excursion that most interests you or your mom. Then book online and use the promo code “MOM” without the quotes to get your mom’s tour for FREE. Each mother must be accompanied by at least one paying customer, and your tour must take place May 11-13, 2018.

You can apply this promotion to any tour on St. Simons Island, Jekyll Island, Sea Island, Brunswick, or the Satilla River. However, this promotion cannot be applied to rentals.

mother's day 2018 promotion - give mom a great memory

Also, in an effort to encourage people to book online, we are offering another promotion for every customer that makes their own reservation. When you book online, you can enter a second promo code – “online” – and your entire reservation will be discounted an additional 2%. This blog post is the only place we are currently advertising our online booking promotion for the moment. We will roll out a larger campaign later in the month.

As always, you are welcome to call or text me at 912-230-4323 or email me at norm@kfpaddle.com for clarification of any product description, promotion, etc.

One final note: Kingfisher will be closed May 6-9. We’ll re-open on May 10, and then we’ll remain open for the rest of the season.

Wishing you all the a great start to May!

-nl

mother's day 2018 promotion - your mom can kayak free

Thanksgiving With Kingfisher

tl;dr – Thanksgiving is a great time to go paddling and bond with friends or family. Call 912-230-4323 to book.

Thanksgiving is one our favorite times of year, and it’s really encouraging to see the Golden Isles bustling with so much activity as families and friends begin to gather for the holiday.

Gatherings and holiday celebrations often mean that people will be searching for activities to fill their days, so we want to remind you that Kingfisher Paddleventures is open. All of our normal tours on St. Simons and Jekyll are available, but we recommend the kayaking tours over the paddleboard tours this time of year. With that said, we’re happy to take you out on paddleboards if that’s what you really want. We enjoy both. And, as always, we welcome all ages and skill levels. Our tours a really great way for your Thanksgiving guests to reconnect and bond.

In addition to the tours, we also have rentals available. All rentals include free delivery and pick-up so you can arrange to meet us anywhere in the Golden Isles. We’ll bring the gear to you, you can go paddle, and then we’ll pick up the gear when you’re done. All you have to do is show up and have some Thanksgiving fun! We do all the work.

Whether you want a guided tour or want to explore on your own, we truly have something for every paddler. So we hope you’ll give us a call and add some adventure to your Thanksgiving break.

See you on the water!

Georgia Governor’s Tourism Conference

The Georgia Governor’s Tourism Conference is meeting on Jekyll Island this week and we’re attending the meeting to learn about and promote ecotourism in Georgia. Please say hello and introduce yourself if you’re at the meeting too. We’d love to meet you!

Kingfisher Paddleventures is working to improve its ecotours and build its repertoire of ecotourism products, both on and off the water. So, in addition to saying hello, please feel free to tell us your suggestions or ask questions about the services that we provide. If you’re not at the tourism conference, we’d still love to hear from you. Tell us what you want!

We want to make ecotourism products that really get you excited! We want you fall in love with the beaches and marshes, and we want to be the ones who help you share that love with everyone else. So, whether you join us on a paddleboard tour or prefer to go kayaking, hopefully our product line will grow to include the things that interest you if it doesn’t already.

It’s our hope that attending and talking to people at the Georgia Governor’s Tourism Conference will help us identify ways to better serve our market on Jekyll and St. Simons islands. We also want to learn more about other ecotourism companies in Georgia – what are they offering, who are their customers, and what do their customers most enjoy? The answers to these questions, in addition to the feedback we solicit from our own customers, will help us build the best product possible.

Happy paddling!

Come Help Us With The Litter Clean Up!

Please come help us with the litter clean up this evening at Massengale Park on St. Simons Island! Kingfisher Paddleventures is partnered with Keep Golden Isles Beautiful to help with litter clean-up efforts in the aftermath of Frat Beach activities.

We will be at Massengale Park from 5:00 to 7:00 PM to collect litter left behind by the crowds on Frat beach today.

Huge crowds came to our beaches today in advance of the annual Georgia-Florida football game in Jacksonville, FL on Saturday. In past years, the crowds have surged into the thousands, with most participants being students from UGA who have come to the island as part of a weekend-long celebration of the rivalry between the Bulldogs and the Gators.

As with any large crowd, the Frat Beach partiers always leave litter in their wake. Unfortunately, the fact that they’re leaving that litter on a beach where the tides easily wash the trash into the ocean, time is of the essence. We need collect and dispose of the litter as quickly as possible in order to help keep the beach and marshes clean and safe for both wildlife and people.

Kingfisher Paddleventures invites you to come help us with the litter clean up this evening. As a company that makes its money off paddleboard and kayak tours of the island, we are eager to make sure that the beaches and parking lots are clean following today’s events.

Kingfisher Paddleventures Is Listed in 365 Atlanta Family!

Kingfisher Paddleventures is proud to be one the businesses listed in the most recent update of “St Simons Island: An Insider’s Guide To Stay, Eat And Play,” a travel advice article on 365 Atlanta Family! The post, by Sue Rodman, includes information about St. Simons Island and its weather, a listing of hotels and resorts, a list of things to do during your stay, and some information about the island’s famed “tree spirits.”

We’re very pleased to be included in the list of family activities on St. Simons Island and hope that you’ll come paddleboard or kayak with us soon. We strive to provide an experience that is both fun and educational that your entire family can enjoy. Please give us a call at 912-230-4323 or read more about our services on this web site.

Paddleboards Don’t Belong In Trees

Yes, that’s a paddleboard in a tree. No, paddleboards don’t belong in trees. paddleboards don't belong in trees 1

paddleboards don't belong in trees 2 All’s well that ends well… a (possibly too honest) look behind the scenes of a small business and the sometimes nerve wracking adventure of entrepreneurship.

paddleboards don't belong in trees 3 Last night, a series of very strong storms with crazy torrential rains and high winds ripped their way across the marshes between Brunswick and the islands. I happened to be pulling my paddleboard trailer across the Sidney Lanier Bridge in the middle of it all. Why? No particular reason other than needing to get home from Jekyll Island after sharing dinner with my mother at The Wharf.

As I was crossing the bridge in the middle of very heavy rain and strong winds, a strap broke and a paddleboard was torn from the trailer. It flew into the night, right over the side of the bridge and into the dark abyss below.

paddleboards don't belong in trees 4 My mom, who was following in her car behind me, described what she saw as “a really big frisbee flying off the trailer and into the night.” Thankfully no one was hurt. I was just missing a board, and I was really wet from having got out of my truck to investigate.

I was pretty sure the board was lost forever, a sacrifice stolen by the gods of the marsh for the living I make plying their waters.

paddleboards don't belong in trees 5 Well, this morning I decided to go search for my board. And I found it, too! It was in a tree near the edge of the marsh some 60+ feet below the bridge and – this is the truly incredible part – undamaged! Not a scratch, despite being blown over the side of a bridge and landing in (on?) a tree!

paddleboards don't belong in trees 6 First pic shows the board as I initially saw it from the bridge this morning. Each picture after that shows the board from a closer view, and the last two show it was undamaged (I’m still shocked at that part). Crazy, huh?

(The preceding text is re-posted from the @kfpaddle Instagram account; read on to find out what we learned.)

OK, we admit it, the story is bazaar and funny/weird. And people are as likely to laugh at us as they are to laugh at the story.

We’re OK with all that. The Tale Of The Flying Paddleboard holds some important reminders and lessons for us. Here’s what we gleaned from our misadventure:

First, not every “disaster” is as bad as it seems. When my paddleboard was ripped from the trailer and blown over the side of the bridge by gale force winds, I was pretty certain that I had just seen the last of that board. Furthermore, my mind more or less went straight to the “oh no!” stage and the “ouch! that’s gonna hurt the budget” stage. Fortunately, we were very lucky this time around. No one was hurt, the paddleboard was not damaged, and the budget is no worse than it was before we tried playing the SUP version of Mary Poppins.

Second, things could always be worse. In this case, the board could have blown backward off the trailer, straight into my mom’s windshield. It didn’t, but it could have. So, what I thought was a bad situation wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. It’s good to remember that, even when you’re pretty sure you just witnessed the birth of a fiasco, there’s always a worse scenario. Helps put thing in perspective.

Third, paddleboards are odd things. We’ve had boards get dinged and scratched and nearly destroyed by small falls/drops/bumps, so the fact that a board can survive falling more than 60 feet, pushed by gale force winds, and not have a single new scratch on it is …. well, it’s simply amazing and very weird.

Fourth, plan for the unexpected. Paddleboards don’t belong in trees, and they’re also supposed to stay on the trailer when you strap them in place. So, no, we never saw this problem coming. But, thanks to a general preparedness ethic, we were able to deal with situation smoothly and effectively. Remember, when things go sideways (literally, in this case), you have choices. You can choose to react, you can choose to freeze, and you can choose to respond. We responded, rather than reacting, and we were able to 1) recover our board and 2) limit the damage to our budget/business.

So, to sum things up, we have this list:

Some of the weird things that happen in life are beyond credulity.
The lens of time often shows us that what looked disastrous in the moment really isn’t so bad. This perspective can help keep us calm.
On the flip side of the perspective coin is the idea that things could, in fact, be worse. Be grateful that they aren’t.
Whatever you think was destroyed in a particular situation might be just fine. Although we would have expected the paddleboard to be smashed in this example, it was actually OK.
It pays to be prepared.

Most entrepreneurs have equally bazaar stories if they’ve been in business for any length of time. Striking out on your own isn’t for the faint of heart, as seen herein, but it can be richly rewarding. So take these episodes for the learning opportunities that they are, make sure you’re paying attention to the lessons hiding beneath your frustration and angst, and then move forward!

New Name “Kingfisher Paddleventures” Is Now Live!

Our new name, Kingfisher Paddleventures, is now 100% live! Sure, we’ve been here for a bit, kinda simmering on the back burner, but now we’ve turned the heat on high! Our official transition to Kingfisher Paddleventures from SSI SUP/Saint Simons Paddleboard & Kayak has begun. Over the next year, we’ll phase out all things SSI SUP and move entirely to Kingfisher.

From now on, all of our business will be conducted using this web site and new name, Kingfisher Paddleventures. Our social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Yelp, etc.) are all kfpaddle. Things are sleek, streamlined, and ready to go! No more trying to remember long names, weird abbreviations, or whether there’s an underscore in our name.

Anything and everything SSI SUP or Saint Simons Paddleboard & Kayak is now in one place with a new name that makes more sense in relation to what we do, where we work, and who we are. We are Kingfisher Paddleventures, and this change is very exciting for us. We’re proud to be making this transition to Kingfisher Paddleventures, and we hope that you’ll join us for the journey – both figuratively and literally.

Why the change to a new name?

We outgrew the old name.
“SSI SUP” didn’t fit us anymore, and Kingfisher Paddleventures is “more us.”We serve more than St. Simons.
We’re no longer “just” on St. Simons Island. We serve all of the Golden Isles, meaning that we serve people on Jekyll Island, St. Simons Island, Little St. Simons Island, Sea Island, and Brunswick. Heck, we even venture as far as Darien and Sapelo to the north and down to Amelia Island and the Okefenokee Swamp to our south (but only rarely).
We do more than paddleboards.
We’re not “only” a paddleboard company anymore, either. In addition to paddleboards, we also have kayaks. Within the next year or so, we’ll probably also add some other types of watercraft to product line, too. More on that later.
Kingfishers are cool and invoke the ecological aspects of what we do.
We are really, really proud of our ecotours, and we want people to associate with us nature/ecotourism. So, we picked a bird, the kingfisher, for our mascot and our namesake. Kingfishers are found throughout the world near water and are a common sight for many paddlers. They hunt for fish and put on impressive aerial displays, and they’re just pretty to look at. Given their many fine qualities and the being relevant to water-based ecotourism, they were a natural choice (pun intended!).
“Paddleventures” captures what we do, too.
All of our watercraft – paddleboards and kayaks, for the time being – require you to paddle. And, for many, our excursions are an “adventure.” So, paddle+adventure=paddleventure.
It turns out we’re not the only company out there to land on the same made-up word, and a small handful of other really cool ecotourism businesses also use paddleventure in their name. We like to think that we came up with the idea first, but that’s probably not true.
“SSI” was confusing to many people.
Not familiar with the Golden Isles and the local nicknames for places around here? Don’t worry, it took us a while to get used to local names, too. One local name you hear a lot – and might already know if you watch bumper stickers – is “SSI.” SSI is short for Saint Simons Island, but if you’re not a regular /resident around these parts, you wouldn’t know that. As a business that caters to tourists, many who are visiting here for the first time, it’s not the best idea to have an abbreviation like that in your name.
“SUP” confused people too.
Remember what I just said about tourists visiting here for their first time? Well, many of them are new to the sport of paddleboarding too. Consequently, jargon like “SUP” leaves them out in the cold, sorta like when we were all in high school and the cool kids had their own lingo that reinforced the “them” v. “us” cliquishness of our teenage years. As a company that wants to include everyone and invite new people to the sport, we decided to do away with the abbreviation. Now, with “paddleventures,” what we do is a little more evident.
We feel like changing to the new name somehow makes the company more “ours.”
This one might be a little silly, but so be it. Our emotional sense of ownership means a lot to us because we pour our heart and soul into what we do. We want the new name of our company to reflect who we are and what we do, not someone else’s vision or idea.
Don’t get me wrong: the people we bought the company from are really nice folks who we like a lot. And they built a company that we were happy to buy. It’s just time for us to emerge from their shadow and grow tall on our own.

We hope that you’re as excited about the future as we are! We can’t wait to see where our path leads as we move forward, and we would love to have you all join us on our journey.

Take Your Dad Paddling on Father’s Day!

Dads Paddle Free on Father’s Day!

Use the code “DadsRock!” when you checkout online or mention this promotion when you call to book your activity.

Rental – Tandem Kayak (2 people)

So, if you’re looking for something interesting and fun to do with your dad this Father’s Day weekend, why not take him paddling?

It’s a great way to spend time with the most special man in your life. Create an experience that will live in your memories forever. Trust us, you won’t regret it.

Paddling with kids is fun, too! They love seeing the marshes from a “dolphin-eye view” and the activity is just what everyone needs to help workup an appetite for the Father’s Day grill-out that you’re about to do for yourself! 😉

Dads love it, and the memories last forever! We take pictures of you and your family so you can remember your special day.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the water, with all kinds of people in many different places. By far, the best paddling experiences I’ve ever had included my children. I highly recommend trying it! I’ll admit, it’s not always a smooth paddle – let alone a dry one! – but it’s always

These are my kids, in all their glorious goofiness. One is missing from this picture, but I love her and keep her in my heart. With them, every day is cherished, and I don’t “need” anything special for Father’s Day. That said, it’s still super cool when they stop to say, “I love you.”

Me and my father, 2013 — Norm & Ken Leonard, 2013. Ken died in late August 2014.

This is me and my Dad, about a year before he died.

Make sure you tell your dad that you love him, regardless of how you choose to spend Father’s Day this year.

It’s Memorial Day Weekend – Thank A Veteran!

It’s Memorial Day Weekend, and that means it’s time to remember all those who served. Some gave all, all gave some.

Kingfisher Paddleventures is grateful for your service.

We understand that there are people in this world with bad intentions who wish to harm us or take what we have. Then there are the men and women who serve in our military. Thank you, Veterans, for your service, your sacrifice, and the safety you provide.

Happy Memorial Day! Thank you, Veterans — Happy Memorial Day! Thank you, Verterans

The somber, soulful side of Memorial Day is too often dismissed or forgotten, and it’s good to take a moment to slow down and say, “thank you!”

Fortunately, Veterans like to have fun, too! Goodness knows they’ve earned it.

So, we hope you’ll join us out on the water this weekend for a paddle in a kayak or on a paddleboard. It’s not too late to give us a call and plan your adventure. In fact, we have still have a couple of open spots in our schedule, and we’d love the chance to tell a veteran “thank you” in person.

The weather forecast looks great, with plenty of sun and warm breezes! Check out this screenshot of the Weather Underground forecast for the Georgia Coast:

So, please, come on out and enjoy the water! We love to share this beautiful place with visitors and show you all the cool spots. We’re ready for you!

Looking forward to a really great summer! Hopefully you and your family are starting it off in style.

-kfpv