Jim - Bean symposium is a three-day event at the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine Maine. There are bascially four components: (1) a huge hall, ordinarily a gymnasium, in which there are dozens of commercial exhibits - everything from boats to paddles to paddling wear to books to paddling organizations like the Maine Island Trail Association..... (2) dozens of actual off-water classes on everything related to kayking and kayking camping, kayak expeditioning - everything from rough water paddling technique to weather prediction to hwo to pack a kayak to kayak cooking to how to pee in a kayak..... you can't think of anything whic isn't covered......(3) on-water classes in paddling technique (at various levels, but really all pretty basic), towing, the use of flares....(4) several outfitters, usually between 6 and 10 different companies, have on-water booths from which you can try out various boats, and of course they'll be delighted to sell you a boat too. The "on-water" part of the Symposium is on a small lake which is about 0.5 miles from the Maritime Academy. Shuttle bus service is available from the Academy to the lake. Food is available from the cafeteria - some of it for extra money. Camping is available. There are a couple of excellent hotels in Castine, and the walk to the Maritime Academy is only a few blocks from any of them. Very casual clothes. Bring a paddle and a spray skirt if you're going to try out boats - for some reason I've never understood, none of the outfitters except Maine Island Kayak has those items at their on-water booths. There are usually a few hundred people who attend. I believe it's the largest paddling sumposium on the East coast, in terms of the number of attendees. Bill Hansen Ithaca NY *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Jul 12 2000 - 06:52:38 PDT
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