Re: [Paddlewise] Saturation Point

BaysideBob wrote:
<SNIPPED>
> Assuming there is a sea-kayak "explosion" there are two options:
> Cope, or quit.
> 
> Cope by going out on week-days, early mornings or by the moon.  Go a little
> further.  I'll see a dozen boats when I put in and very few more than a mile
> away.  Appreciate the people who are out there.  They want to enjoy the same
> things I do, share, teach, encourage, set an example.  The real destruction
> of the water is not from kayakers, it's from people who have never been on
> the water, have no appreciation of it and dump oil down the storm drain.
> The more people who appreciate the water, the more sensitive their off the
> water behavior.
> 
> Or quit.  Be a grumpy old man and quit.  Complain about increasing
> population, which you can't do much about.  Don't encourage more people to
> appreciate the water.  Don't help them.  Let them spend their money on new
> computers and motor vehicles.  Then when they, as a society, pursue courses
> which trash the waters and fill the bays, you can claim credit through your
> inaction.

I agree wholeheartedly with BaysideBob especially in the part of his
post that I snipped in which he stresses that there may not really be a
seakayaking _explosion_.

There is room galore for everyone who now owns a sea kayak to all go out
this very day and they will occupy only an infinitesimal amount of the
desirable paddling waters.  Sure, some hot spots would have quite a few
boats but even here they will not be butting bows and sterns against
each other.  And, meanwhile, thousands of miles of other choice spots
will have the paddlers so spread out that they may never even see each
other beyond a flick of sun ray on paddle blade off some distance away.

And anyway, I get a kick out of seeing lots of people on the water.  It
is one of the reasons I like being down at the Downtown Boathouse where
we put some 6,000 people on the water last year and are probably headed
to 7,000 or so in 1999.  Nothing compares to the delight on people's
faces when they experience that first half hour of watery movement at
the city's edge in a boat propelled by their own muscle power bobbing
over wakes in a harbor and river in renewal.  Some of those 6,000 get
the bug, buy their own kayaks and join the ranks of local paddlers who
can never crowd the thousands of miles of paddleable water within a hour
of the Big Apple.  Most don't but the memory they take with them is
priceless and leaves them in kinship with us in support of recapturing
our waterfronts and waters.  

I know it is the human instinct for some of us to want to horde, to want
to maintain some exclusivity over a domain they discovered by themselves
years ago.  But there is so much of that domain and sharing it won't
take anything away.  Maybe some places do crowd up but do as BaysideBob
suggests...go at other times, go further out.  Instead of resenting the
newcomers, embrace them, help them skill up and smarten up to enjoy the
waters as you have.

ralph diaz

-- 
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Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter
PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024
Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com
"Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag."
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