Rob Hazard

Roger, do I understand that your spray skirt imploded on your Greenlander? I thought that was an ocean cockpit, and therefore immune to imploding! Whuh happun? Rob Explorer - off white

I'll be taking 4* training Fri and Sat, followed by Fwd Stroke, then Rock Gardens on Monday. That way, if I trash my boat in the rocks, the whole trip won't be wasted! I TRUST that all you AA hotshots will be using GPs! (Right, Bill?) Rob Explorer - whitish

You are welcome to use my White's. I will NOT be taking it to the symposium. If it's THAT cold up there, the whole event is in trouble! :^D I'll throw it in my car so it'll be in Gloucester if you need it. Rob

Walter also served as our guide to the scenic and historic highlights of Essex Bay, recounting, as we went along, the exploits of Chief Joe the Conomo Indian, the British Navy, and the troubles endured by a local farmer getting a field of corn to grow on Hog Island for the filming of _The Crucible_. His entertaining narration made the ten mile excursion feel like only seven! A great day on the water, indeed! Thanks, Walter! Cheers, Rob

I'm gonna try to make it, Walter! Rob Explorer - whitish...

I have picked up some good WRC paddle stock from Yankee Pine, which is located directly across Rt 1 from New England Small Craft in Rowley. As I recall the price was ~ $25 for an 8ft 2x4. Rob

YES! The Chebacco sessions are happening every Thursday evening beginning about 5 PM and going until a little after sunset. Come join the fun! Rob Explorer - white

Thanks to Cheri and Turner! The morning session had equal success. With only 3 students, the instruction was quite intense, and Rhodes, Peter, and I all made great strides. I cleaned up my layback roll, making it much more "Greenlandic" and less of a Euro-roll-with-funny-paddle, and put together the components of a forward finish roll, which had eluded me last summer. Rhodes (last name?) from Marblehead, who claimed to have a very spotty roll to begin with, was doing a butterfly roll with a narsaq in his Avocet by the end of the class! Talk about a fast learner! Like Ed, I would encourage everyone to study with Cheri and Turner if you get the chance. Even if you decide that the traditional Greenland technique stuff isn't for you, your boat handling skills will take a great leap forward. Rob Explorer - white (and very wide!)

After making a bit of a late start, (when will I learn about summer traffic through the Hampton tolls?)seven of us got on the water. After introductions all around and a quick confab about the proposed route, we agreed to abandon the Gerrish Island trip for a less ambitious paddle through the little channels south of the harbor. We stopped for lunch and a leg-stretch back of Pierce's Island, then poked our noses out into the main channel, which was thumping right along out there! A couple of the crew got a bit of standing-wave practice, but then we high-tailed it back into flat water for a leisurely return to Odiorne. A lovely day on the water. Hope you like the MG, Kev! Rob

Looks like my friends Bob Cornell and Jason Fouser will be coming along too. So we're a fleet of at least 7 boats. Terrific! Rob

Odiorne would work for me. May have to park on the $$$ side, but that's OK. Noon? Rob Explorer - off-white

Saturday's tide at Portsmouth will be HIGH at 2:26 PM. If we launch around noon, we could ride the incoming up behind Gerrish, floating up Chauncey Creek, then scoot out Brave Boat Harbor and follow the coast back. OR we could float up What's-Its-Name Creek to Rt 1 and go shopping at the Kittery Trading Post! OR we could float up the river past Seavey Island and get yelled at by some poor sentry at the navy yard!!! The possibilities are endless! Rob

I'm definately interested... Looks like high tide a little after 2PM. Rob Explorer - off-white

..."our terrestrial lives", mine beginning with a shower and a long NAP! Good job, Peter! My personal souvenir of the trip is an amusing pattern of bright red oval dots on the top of my thinly upholstered cranium,left by the sun beaming down through the drain holes in my helmet. My wife suggests that next time I go out I should use SPF-40 sunblock for haircream!

I'll be there! Rob Explorer - white

These days the Chebacco session goes until about 8:15. As the days get shorter, of course, so do the sessions. But it sounds like you have access to other sessions that are more convenient to you. Practice! Do you have a good facemask? Being able to see clearly underwater AND not have nasty fresh water invading your nose makes being upside down in the boat much more pleasant. Then you can concentrate more fully on watching the paddle blade and rotating the boat and all the other stuff everyone else has covered. Practice! I suspect Diving Paddle Syndrome is a phase that we all go through learning to roll. This, too, shall pass! Practice!

I first got a fairly reliable pond-roll with the GP. My euro roll, a sweep style, owes a lot to what I learned with the GP. Not bombproof, but pretty reliable. I work on smoothing it out every Thursday evening at Chebacco Lake. (Hint, hint, Gillian!) The best instructional video on rolling I've seen is called "The Kayak Roll". I bought it at Kittery Trading Post. I'd lend it to you, but last winter I loaned it to somebody who keeps forgetting to return it! I also took Bob Foote and Karen Knight's rolling class last summer, and they helped me a lot. Mike Crouse and Rick Crangle both gave me some good pointers early on, too. Have someone good work with you, watching and coaching, and it'll come together. Then practice, practice, practice!

I have been using a long fish filleting knife. The blade is very flexible and can be held in a curve for carving hollows with a saw-like action. It needs to be sharpened frequently on a sheet of 180 grit sandpaper, but it does the rough cuts very quickly.

Remember, Gillian, Greenheads are people, too!

I am NOT stubborn!!! As I sat with the door open getting into my wetsuit, the car quickly filled with Greenheads. But most of them didn't seem interested in me at all; rather, they were buzzing inside the windows, trying to get out! My green Subaru makes a great Greenhead trap! I opened the windows and off they went. (...am NOT!)

My drysuit is a White's, bought a couple years ago at NESC. So far the gaskets have held up fine, but I probably don't use it as hard as most of you. It's a cheaper suit than a Kokatat, and not Goretex, which accounts, I trust, for the little pool of moisture I find myself sitting in after a day's paddle! Joel at NESC told me that one sure way to make your neck gasket fail is to hang the suit on a plastic coathanger. Apparently the gasket material is allergic to the styrene. Back when I was windsurfing the standard cold weather garb was a heavy wetsuit called a sealed steamer. Not as flexible as a drysuit, but much more reliable! Reading through this thread, I'm amazed by our collective good luck that noone has had a catastrophic suit failure on the water! Rob

I paddled the Annisquam this evening, from Jones River over to Goose Cove culvert to try out my new homemade foam seat in the Explorer. Excellent! The boat's handling is vastly improved. Anyway, launching and loading I probably got bitten a dozen times by the much-feared Greenheads. Annoying, I grant you, but gee willikers, folks, they aren't yellow jackets! And once you're on the water, you're away from them, anyway. It was a lovely evening on the water. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Cheers, Rob Explorer - quill Seguin - blue and yellow

Your report made nice reading, Peter. I'd heard of Lake Umbagog (UMbagog or umBAYgog?) before, but never took the trouble to look it up. I did read Louise Dickenson Rich's book, "We Took to the Woods" years ago.Maybe that's where I found the name. Sounds like you were in the Anas Acuta, no? Cheers, Rob

I'm hoping to make it. I'll have to bring my S&G boat, since I just pulled the seat out of my Explorer. Rob Seguin - blue & yellow

Jeez, you guys are scarin' me! How localized are these bacterial concentrations? Are there sewage outfalls right next to the individual beaches? Or we paddling through diluted sewage all the way from Boston to Portsmouth?