Kingfisher Paddleventures will be closed July 4th in observance of Independence Day. We wish everyone a safe and fun-filled celebration!
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!
Looking for the perfect gift for your dad? Then take advantage of this Father’s Day 2018 promotion and give him 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 DAD get your dad’s tour for FREE. Each father must be accompanied by at least one paying customer, and your tour must take place June 15-17, 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.
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.
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.
A peregrine falcon in flight. Photo by Pat Leary via The Brunswick News article on 16 October 2017.
Record numbers of peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) are being observed in the Golden Isles, according to an article that appeared in The Brunswick News on Monday, 16 October 2017.
The falcons are known for their high-speed dives and taking prey mid-air. The picture shown here, which I copied from the article in The Brunswick News, shows a falcon in flight as caught on camera by Pat Leary. It’s a good depiction of how the birds often appear when viewed through binoculars.
Although the Cornell Lab of Ornithology profile page for peregrine falcons says that the IUCN lists the birds as a species of least concern, they are very rare in Georgia despite having been common in the past. The cause of their decline along the east coast is attributed to the widespread use of DDT, a pesticide that was once used to control mosquitos but has since been outlawed.
Each year during October, peregrine falcons and other birds of prey, collectively referred to as “raptors,” migrate from their northern summertime habitats to winter habitats. You can come on one of our birding tours to try and see these majestic animals for yourself. Give us a call at 912-230-4323 for tour availability. You can read more about peregrine falcons on our sister site, Southeast Ecology, where we are building a repository of natural history information specific to the southeastern United States.
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.
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, 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.
