To Paddlewise, Greetings from Richard Clifford. Native Manhattanite, second generation Irish closing in on our family's first century in this country. Another paddler from the New York arena. 47 years of age. Old fart? Who's to say? I still have a working (outdoor) hot tub. What does that say? Attorney in Manhattan, living in Westchester Co. just north of the city. Divorced, two great daughters. My kayaking year patterns the school year from September through the cold water months to May/June. At times I put up posts about hypothermia, issues, informational sites & material, and news. During the Summer kayaking is always challenge with the power boat squadron out in force. But I do participate as "volunteer" kayaker during the Summer which I will explain in a moment. First, I take my kayak (Current Designs Solstice ST) into the waters of the Long Island Sound regularly between New Rochelle/Larchmont to the Norwalk Islands. And, I do some regular paddling in the Hudson River and around Manhattan Island. The "volunteer". I have long enjoyed working and training with ultra distance or marathon swimmers, typically prepping for the Channel (English-French) swim or around Manhattan. I was the kayaker with swimmers on the third (Marcia Cleveland) and eighth (Arthur Coleman) fastest trips around Manhattan. http://www.swimnyc.com/p0000842.htm I will point out that both efforts were under cover of darkness, starting at 2:20 A.M.. Marcia's log: http://www.swimnyc.org/p0002385.htm In the races around the island my individual swimmer companions have fared well enough through the years, with a first and two seconds place finishes. You see amazing sites going around at that time. By far the most spectacular is coming down the Hudson with a swimmer (being given some room by the escort boats), just north of the George Washington Bridge, before dawn; light on the GWB are being dimmed, stars are still in the sky, pale moon light. And, along the line of Do Not Try This At Home, one would be well advised, do not try that trip (day or night) alone or without a lot of experienced folks. After being involved in many sucessful efforts, and because I failed to get my head down quickly enough or perhaps keep it down long enough I was nabbed as the "kayak coordinator" for the Manhattan Island Foundation ("MIF") http://www.nycswim.org Take a look. You all are welcome to join in and assist. We always need help. MIF has an annual swim known as the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim ("the big event"), obviously around the island (approx. 28.5 miles). This year the big event will take place on June 12. MIF also sponsors several Hudson River swims along with Hudson River Park Conservancy and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and corporate sponsor D'Agostino Supermarkets. We have a Little Red Lighthouse swim (7.8 miles), a Wrong Way swim (2.4 miles) (up the Hudson, but with the tides), and an Anuual Greater Hudson River Swim (2.8 miles). I have enjoyed luring into the clutches of MIF many of the folks I see on this list. And I have had the pleasure of kayaking with many of them. Ralph Diaz has participated with the past swims and now is sharing some of his vast expertise and experience organizing for the future swims. Bill Leonhardt has helped with swims and been great company on some trips in this area. Jack (Joq) Martin also is a great guy. But what happened to this year's cold water clinic that CPA had last January?! Anyway, I don't recall spotting Jackie's bio. After all she is the person who we must all thank for this terrific list. Well moderated, good topics. And, not a regional issue ranting post. From what I see it is quite international. Thanks Jackie. Best Richard *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
Date sent: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 10:51:03 -0800 From: rcc7 <rcc7_at_ix.netcom.com> Send reply to: rcc7_at_ix.netcom.com To: PaddleWise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subject: [Paddlewise] Who We Are My former friend Richard Clifford writes --- > Jack (Joq) Martin also is a great guy. But what > happened to this year's cold water clinic that CPA had last January?! I'm deeply disconcerted by the obfuscation of an attorney --- sorry to be redundant, List --- and a former friend, Richard Clifford. It is my understanding that I'm being mercilessly maligned on the CPAKayaker for blowing off coordinating another Cold Water Workshop this winter. This couldn't be further from the truth. There was, in fact, no intention of having another Cold Water Workshop this winter in Annapolis. What I blew off was a promised Newbies Clinic for this winter. Just to set the record straight! That said, the winter isn't over yet. And I'll get to work on a Y2K Cold Water Workshop, Richard. I'll get right on it, in fact --- tomorrow. Or next week. Jack Martin "Never put off to tomorrow that which you can put off to the day after tomorrow." *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
> It is > my understanding that I'm being mercilessly maligned on the > CPAKayaker for blowing off coordinating another Cold Water > Workshop this winter. Jack (Joq), Can't say that I've observed this on the CPAkayaker list. I participated in the last cold water workshop and got a heck of allot out of it. I (and many others) appreciate and understand the significant efforts that you spearheaded and others assisted with to make the workshop as good as it was. If another workshop happens, then that would be wonderful... if not, then we're all at fault for not making it happen. Greg *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
Date sent: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 23:56:44 -0500 From: Greg Hollingsworth <Gregh_at_abs.net> Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Who We Are To: Jack Martin <jcmartin43_at_radix.net> Copies to: PaddleWise_at_lists.intelenet.net Greg and others who have responded to me privately --- Mea culpe! That response to Richard Clifford's post was meant to have been taken as a joke. Obviously it wasn't by some. Richard was --- and I hope still is --- a good friend. (Guess I've gotta go to emoticons --- although I'd thought my writing style obviated the need for that.) All I was trying to say was that I hadn't blown off doing a Cold Water Workshop --- but I <had> blown off a Newbies clinic that I'd promised to take on. Should never have mentioned the CPA deal at all. Sorry. And sorry PaddleWise --- shouldn't have brought this up at all on this list. It's a CPA matter. Jack Martin > > It is > > my understanding that I'm being mercilessly maligned on the > > CPAKayaker for blowing off coordinating another Cold Water > > Workshop this winter. > > Jack (Joq), > > Can't say that I've observed this on the CPAkayaker list. > > I participated in the last cold water workshop and got a heck of allot > out of it. I (and many others) appreciate and understand the > significant efforts that you spearheaded and others assisted with to > make the workshop as good as it was. If another workshop happens, then > that would be wonderful... if not, then we're all at fault for not > making it happen. > > Greg > *************************************************************************** > PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List > Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net > Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net > Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ > *************************************************************************** > *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
.....while I obviously cannot compete with luminaries such as Dr. Iverbon, et.al, permit me to introduce myself as well, and give a bit of my paddling pedigree. (Dr. Iverbon brought to mind a Geographic article and photo essay on Peary which included a bevy of comely Inuit maidens, linked shoulder to shoulder, grinning, in what could only be described as a kick-line formation, often seen in arctic ceremonies, no doubt. The wry caption of the group of photographs was ..........."ethnological studies".) But that was ZEN.....this is now. I was but a lad of 10 back in 1963 when I began the process in earnest, of wheedling and haranguing my tin-banger- union- man father for a kayak. As one might have guessed, the options were somewhat limited at the time.....one couldn't just simply pop down to the local kayak outfitter and select one from off the peg, quite a different prospect from the happy scenario today. (Some kid named Georgie Dyson in Princeton N.J. a few miles away, I learned late in life, was making his first skin boat in the living room of his parents house, at the same time, and I have absolutely no question that his career was launched by artistic espionage, somehow watching my Dad and I put together our aluminum and skin, albeit not baidarka, kayak.) But I digress......... Dad had a friend with a low temp welder weld up some thin-wall conduit into a double-ended shape of his own design (that Hungarian could do anything he set his hand to), and he and I sewed a canvas skin on and glassed all but the deck. Spray skirts were unnecessary as a coaming occurred to no one in the fabrication. The only store bought item was a take-apart wooden double bladed paddle. (No, we didn't grow our own canvas and fiberglass). We launched on the Millstone River of central N.J. about a quarter mile downstream from the Griggstown bridge (across from my house). That was the last time I appeared that summer at the family table for regular meals. There was entirely too much interesting stuff that would wash up in the eddies of the frequent log jams on the Millstone, and entirely too many painted turtles to be caught. That part of New Jersey was all dairy farms and silage corn back then, as landscaping with strip malls was slow to catch on. If I had already picked through the flotsam in my little stretch of the Millstone, awaiting the next flood, the boat was light enough for a smallish kid to pick it up on my shoulder and cross the heavily treed no-man's land between the Millstone and the Delaware-Raritan Canal, and cross the tow-path and paddle the canal for a while. That having been done you were teleported back to 1850 -- or so it seemed ,what with the lock-keepers quarters and the houses still standing spared by the Brits who swept through in 1812 when they burnt the courthouse. Except for the hiss of tires on wet pavement of the occasional Sunday driver on the adjacent road, all was nearly like it was in 1850: only the sound was of your paddle drip and occasional turtle plopping off the bank as you passed too near for turtle comfort. Summers, sometimes for 6 weeks, we would load the kayak and my brother's Wind&Sea longboard with the glued in skeg, (he still has it), into the baby blue two- tone Studebaker wagon encrusted with lawn chairs, and barbecue grills and all things necessary for extended beach homesteading, and head through the Pine Barrens to Sea Isle City/ Strathmere N.J. That kayak surfed as one would expect any kayak with a open manhole to surf......but that didn't stop me. My older sister might have tried it once and declined a second offer.......older brother was content with knee-paddling his longboard.....so the beach was mine! Get out beyond the break await a swell, engage the wave, .......broach....do the rotisserie thing.........slogg in........empty out........start over again until dark. Repeat the entire process at dawn, following the "arise Tiki" ceremony (he was coaxing the sun to rise, Polynesian style), officiated by my brother on the beach. Fast forward 32 years............kayakless for that long (sob)........as that homespun boat washed away in a flood when I was 16 (brother Davie didn't tie it up, or someone felt they needed it more than I)......Relocate from Sonora, California to Savannah, JAW-juh, and there, at the Charleston Symposium lay a screaming yellow Wilderness Systems Seacret that had my name on it. Then came the discovery of okome and the good people at Chesapeake Light Craft, and epoxy. And the subsequent discovery that there is only so much that straight panels of plywood can be expected to do. Next a plastic Necky Kyook, the trading of which made this posting possible. Finally at long last, the nitch into which I settled was a skin on frame Baidarka of some 42 pounds ........a Bruce Lemon interpretation of the boat in the Lowie museum. We both put it together at the Charleston Symposium a years ago in four days. (!) Oh yeah, and surf boats. Man, have I got surf boats. An early Necky proto-type of the Rip, and recently a Mega Jester, but it doesn't stop there....... I have, at this moment the skeletal beginnings of another surf boat on my bench in the same garage where the family Volvo was evicted some years ago.....it's all benches and tables and kayak racks to the ceiling now. Last summer my brother visited me and he used one of my longboards (he immediately started stroking into a wave from a kneeling position, caught it, executed a drop-knee backside bottom turn, for the uninitiated, that's reallllllly core, rode it till the skeg ground... ........he didn't miss a beat, I was so proud of him....), came back through the break grinning from ear to ear. I was in my Necky Rip and the surf was uncommonly good that day..........the thought occurred to me, and I shouted over to David......." Hey Dave........It's 1963 .......again!!!" Thanks for your indulgence with my ruminations: Christopher Kohut > From: rcc7 <rcc7_at_ix.netcom.com> > Send reply to: rcc7_at_ix.netcom.com > To: PaddleWise_at_lists.intelenet.net > Subject: [Paddlewise] Who We Are > > My former friend Richard Clifford writes --- > > > Jack (Joq) Martin also is a great guy. But what > > happened to this year's cold water clinic that CPA had last > January?! > > I'm deeply disconcerted by the obfuscation of an attorney --- sorry > to be redundant, List --- and a former friend, Richard Clifford. It > is > my understanding that I'm being mercilessly maligned on the > CPAKayaker for blowing off coordinating another Cold Water > Workshop this winter. This couldn't be further from the truth. There > was, in fact, no intention of having another Cold Water Workshop > this winter in Annapolis. What I blew off was a promised Newbies > Clinic for this winter. Just to set the record straight! > > That said, the winter isn't over yet. > > And I'll get to work on a Y2K Cold Water Workshop, Richard. I'll > get right on it, in fact --- tomorrow. Or next week. > > Jack Martin > > "Never put off to tomorrow that which you can put off to the day > after tomorrow." > > **************** > ********************************************************** > PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List > Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net > Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net > Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ > > ************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** 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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