I attended the East Coast Canoe and Kayak Festival in Charleston, SC USA this past weekend. It was fun. It was especially fun to yell peasant at Steve Cramer in the twilight and make him look around in fight or flight mode until he spotted me. I took a nice Greenland class and at the end the instructor and I chatted about boat colors. She had a oxblood red Betsy Bay with a laughing polar bear on the fore and aft deck. I had my ultramarine blue baidarka with cadmium yellow star and moon covered cutwater and transom. We agreed that it was fun to personalize our boats. She liked to see Greenland gear in colors other than black. I remarked that I had always thought the Greenland crowd liked to wear black to help absorb a bit more energy from the sun. She thought it was a popular color because it looked cool and made a strong visual impact. I did take my first swim in about five years during a surf class. While side surfing I tripped and flipped on a sandbar. I tried a pair of on side rolls and was beaten back down. Switching to off side I found I didn't have enough depth to wiggle under the boat. As I came up to grab a bit of air an odd thing happened. I suddenly had the sensation of being gently but firmly carried out of my boat. It wasn't a voluntary wet exit. I had been sucked right out by the surf and laid down on the sand. It was all very pleasant until I felt my flooded baidarka land on my crotch. I may not actually need my gronicles anymore but I still find then useful. Male readers may shift uncomfortably in their chairs now. Female readers may laugh at our discomfort. Luckily there were no more than two dozen witnesses. I am slowly hunting down and eliminating them one by one. Jim et al *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:49 PDT