I had been asked about a month ago by a local kayak dealer if I would be available to help with kayaking at the Earth Day/Bay Day celebration. I called last week to see if I was still needed. It turns out the local dealer is not selling kayaks anymore, does not know who is bringing the kayaks or what they want me to do, but is sure they still want me to show up. I got down to the county park along the river at about 7:30 am. The activities were not scheduled to begin until10:00 am, but I just had to get some paddling in on such a nice day.It was dead calm, about 60 degrees and the radiation fog was rising off the river in thousands of little wisps. I did about 11/2 hours of sprint work. Sprinting (its still pretty slow, but is seems like sprinting to me) for 10 minutes and then just drifting for a few minutes and then sprinting again. During the drifting the bird songs were wonderful. I think there must still be a few migrating warblers coming through. I never got a good enough look to identify them, but the quick jerky movements and the songs certainly reminded me of warblers. When I got back to the launch area, the kayaks had arrived. There were 10 Perception Jocasee's from the university's (Texas A&M Corpus Christi) wetlands education program. The wetlands education program teaches grade school children about wetlands and their mportance through a three-day combination of kayaking, seining, and mud core sampling. The Jocasee's are recreational doulbe kayaks. They are wide, stable, and with their single large cockpit are very easy to get in and out of. Although they are not speed demons, they work real well for kids (and adults) who have never been canoeing or kayaking. My job was paddling kids whose parents did not want to go paddling with them. I not need have worried about wasting a day without paddling. From 10 am till 4 pm I paddled kids up and down the river. My kayak stroke may never be the same again. Sitting in the back you have to match the stroke of the child in the front. For a 15 minute demonstration ride you can only give a little instruction. You really want the kids to have fun and not think of this as some kind of lecture. I had fast strokers who would put Greenland experts to shame. Of course they only had a 3" stroke and about 1/4 of the blade in the water. I had kids who finished the stroke on one side and I swear counted to 10 before starting the stroke on the other side. I had flat paddlers, vertical paddlers, and even one kid doing a version of the Greenland sliding stroke (this kid obviously has real potential). By the end of the day I was not sure how to hold my paddle, much less how to use it properly. But I managed to keep from banging paddles most of the time, kept us out of the trees along the bank, only got run into by another kayak twice, and most importantly made sure the kids had a great time. I also got to talk a little about Greenland style paddles and boats and do a couple of very simple rolling demonstrations. I was sure that they were going to be eskimo rescue or wet exit/recovery demo's, but I made it up on all the rolls. Most people down here have only seen sit-on-top kayaks if they have seen any kayaks at all so they found the Greenland boat and paddle very interesting. I hope we got some new people interested in the sport. We did not save the planet, but everyone seemed to have a great time. P. S. - A note of caution if you ever get called upon to paddle an open cockpitted kayak. Do not forget the sunscreen on your feet. I now have brillant red and white markings on the inside of my feet and ankles. Red from the sunburn and white from the sandal straps. Mark J. Arnold MJAkayaker_at_aol.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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