I am a young 42 year old living and working in the Okanagan region of BC. Biologically this is quite an interesting area. We are near the northern terminus of the Sonora Desert (we have token cactus in the valley bottom that approach 3" in height). The hills around Okanagan Lake climb approximately 1 200 m above lake level and support pine, spruce and balsam forests with a scattering of alpine sites. Okanagan Lake very rarely freezes over during the winter, providing opportunities to kayak year round. Any other Okanagan paddlers out there? I am looking for partners for casual recreation paddling in the Interior and annual meccas to the Coast. Ten years ago when I lived in Vancouver I signed up for a winter course on kayaking. It was held once a week for 6 weeks at a local high school pool and provided the opportunity to practice escapes and rolls under very controlled circumstances. Unfortunately over the next 10 years I only had the opportunity to rent a kayak on 2 occasions. On settling down here in Summerland I discovered early last year that this was the home of Seaward Kayaks. Not only were they manufactured here but they had a small rental shop on the lake. This summer I signed up for a morning refresher course and got hooked ... again. Sadly Seaward has moved to Vancouver Island. But before they did I purchased a demo Ascente model and used accessories. It took a bight out of my bank account but the offer was too good to pass up. After getting hooked again I cruised the net looking for kayak web sites and listserves like this one. I have had lots of great feed back from other subscribers of this list regarding clothing and paddling techniques. There is still a couple of months left of skiing then bock to the water. Grant A. Thompson R.P.F. Summerland, BC. V0H 1Z0 Grant_at_tfm.bc.ca *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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