[Paddlewise] Yet another paddle bio....

Hi Bill Newman here,

I must admit I feel young again after seeing the average age
of posts.  I am just a youngster of 37, although I often
feel much older- my body does not take the wear and tear the
way it did when I was in my 20s.  I started kayaking soon
after learning to walk - yes my parents have a photo of me
at about age 3 holding my paddle upside down in the pool
with " water-wings " for a PFD (not USCG approved).

I did not start sea kayaking until about 10 years ago, but
after having paddled a fair bit of white water I had a good
base of skills to build from.  My roll is ususually pretty
good although my white water friends have and extensive
gallery or photos of me swimming rapids.  I am glad that
they get so much joy out of my occassional misfortune.  My
offside roll is never as good as I would like, and although
I could hand roll my white water from time to time, I just
now managed to hand roll my Romany 18 sea kayak this last
Sunday!  Patrick Maun who already introduced himself was at
the pool session and will do his best to deny that he
witnessed this event!

I am fortunate to live right on the Mississippi River in
Minneapolis MN so I have no excuses for not paddling, at
least when the ice clears out like it has this week.  Most
of my paddling has been on the Great Lakes and especially
Lake Superior, with a few trips to the Saint Lawrence, and
Baja.  After my housemate and I became creatively unemployed
this summer we had the chance to explore all of the Great
Lakes researching two guide books for Globe Pequot Press.
Our guides to kayaking the Western (Superior&Michigan) and
Eastern(Huron, Lake Saint Clair, Detroit River, Erie,
Ontario, and the Saint Lawrence) will be out by early summer
(end of shame-less promotion).

I have ACA and BCU instructor certifications and hope that
my job as free-lance environmental consultant will give me
the flexability to do a bit of instruction and guiding for a
friends company.



***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List
Submissions:     paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net
Subscriptions:   paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net
Website:         http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/
***************************************************************************