[Paddlewise] Looking back

Having come to sea kayaking later in life (age 48 or 49), I often look
back to places that I had been to in pre-paddling days and tried to
image what it would be like to kayak in them.  The thought came up
recently when I replied to a post from our Argentine PaddleWiser,
Fernando López Arbarello, and I mentioned wanting to paddle portions of
the Chilean coast, the Rio de la Plata near Buenos Aires as well as
Cuba, places I had been to in pre-kayaking days.

I know a number of PaddleWisers are in the same boat, i.e. having
started paddling when older.  If you could re-visit some of your
pre-paddling haunts again, only this time with a kayak, which would they
be and why?

I know the very first thing I did when I started sea kayaking was to go
to _nearby places_ I had experienced only from the land.  One were the
lakes in Bear Mt-Harriman State Park not far from NYC.  For decades my
wife and I had hiked the many trails in the area.  The closest we got to
the water was skinny-dipping on a particularly hot day in what we
thought was a secluded spot...it wasn't!  On getting a kayak our
first paddle was on one of the lakes, clothed of course! (we have a
local club called the Paddling Bares, which I have never had the nerve
to join; maybe some one here has :-)).

The next was on the Hudson.  One particular spot was that little island
I could see while hiking high on Breakneck Ridge, which overlooks the
Hudson just a bit north of West Point.  It was Bannermann Island.  My
wife and I learned a lot on that early paddling trip, mainly how wind
can stop you cold.  I remember paddling against the wind and seeing that
we were parallel to the same little tree for what seemed hours.  Luckily
we were in a folding kayak and were able to land at the closest RR
station and not have to exhaust ourselves fighting the wind all the way
back to our original put-in; I don't think we could have anyway.

My third paddle took me to the waters of Long Island Sound.  As a boy I
had worked many summers on Orchard Beach (in the northern Bronx) selling
refreshments on the beach or being part of the beach cleanup crew.  I
could see small and large islands out in the Sound, too far to swim to
and longed to know what it would be like to visit them by boat.  Natch,
we kayaked out to them the first chance we got.

I wonder how many of you did something similar the first moment you got
your hands on a kayak?  And, again, looking back to faraway places you
knew in pre-paddling days, which would you like to go back to with a
kayak?  

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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