chetpk

http://www.goosebaylumber.com/

Highland Hardwoods in Brentwood on Rt. 125 http://www.highlandhardwoods.com/hardwood-lumber.html

This site is outdated but will give you some links to various activities, lodging, restaurants, campsites etc. http://www.greatnorthwoods.org/

Umbagog Lake in Errol on the N.H -Me. border and the Connecticut Lakes in Pittsburg on the N.H. - Vt. border are both excellent for what you are looking for. Pittsburg will offer more in terms of cabins to be rented, but both should offer you excellent chances to see moose, nice waters to paddle and wonderful undeveloped shorelines to explore. You should be able to find information for both in terms of rentals on the net without much problem. Once you get to either - or destination, the locals usually are good for pointing you to the better spots for moose sightings.

I read this account today which unfortunately illustrates the exact concerns that the Coast Guard has. http://seakayakstonington.blogspot.com/200...t-fatality.html

Blackburn?? Hell I'm buying it to break Freya Hoffmeister's latest Australian record.

Project Delphin? http://www.kayakquixotica.com/2009/09/30/p...phin/#more-5243

For what it is worth, P&H is going to be releasing a Cetus M (medium) that supposedly will split the difference between the original large Cetus and the Cetus LV. I believe it will be out this spring.

EPISEA poly kayak that has a true performance design for smaller paddlers. http://www.emc-epi.com/touring.html Water Walkers in Belfast Maine has two http://www.touringkayaks.com/boatspecs.htm

Suncook Canoe & Kayak in Barnstead, N.H. is going out of business, but he has a couple of the new British PEAK UK drysuits at really decent prices. Very high quality materials and features. This is their new design with the only zipper on it starting on the inside of one leg, going up and under the crotch and down the other leg so you pull it on like a sweater then simply zip the one zipper shut. The store is only open weekends now till the end of December

I picked up one of these Adventure Technology paddles at an L.L. Bean outlet, mainly because the price was right, but I do like their simple and lot less convoluted twist and turns that they put into their shaft to create their bent shaft paddle. It seems to split the difference between others' bent shaft designs and a straight shaft. Steve Scherrer claims it is the best all around paddle that he has used, but then again his company sells them so I would take that piece with a grain of salt. Their blade shape works well for general touring, but the Ikelos is probably better for the choppy water. They only offer one blade shape in two sizes with the OS blade being the bigger of the two. Mine is not the OS so don't know how that compares to other bigger blades. http://www.atpaddle.com/product/157354/XCE...on_SL_Carbon_OS

Openings. If your boat has three hatch covers then it has four openings including the cockpit thus doesn't meet their definition. If the law reads that hatch covers designate that they aren't openings, then wearing a sparayskirt would also designate that the boat has no openings at all thus it isn't a "kayak." ??

Laying the groundwork for kayak fees? If this bill requires a regulatory agency to oversee, then it will require funding?

I found the responses on that board interesting and was a little surprise that these events didn't pique some concerns. I wonder what the opinion of the whitewater businesses that operate in the western part of Massachusetts (Deerfield River etc.) or AMC run boating trips opinion is?

Discussions going on at another board http://www.npmb.com/cms2/e107_plugins/foru...opic.php?132578

You might try ...Composite Engineering-- Van Dusen Racing Boats right there in Concord Ma. http://www.vandusenracingboats.com/ They build high end carbon racing kayaks and racing shells so working with materials that your boat is built with is everyday work for them. I use to help repair crew shells for our local kids' rowing club and I treated the repair work on their carbon layups the same way I would on a glass hull. I always used epoxy. Almost all of your rowing shells are carbon lay-ups these days so you could contact any of the numerous clubs and colleges over in the Boston area and they might be able to put you onto a good repair person or shop for a carbon lay-up. Kerry Guptil in Barnstead N.H. does good repair work. Unfortunately as owner of Sunccok Canoe and Kayak shop, the economy has forced him to close, but he is planning on continuing to do boat repairs. Right now he is in the process of closing his shop so I don't believe he could handle it immediately.

Hiked Mt Flume and Liberty with my son yesterday. Some ice on the trail and the Prez-ies were all white.

Unfortunately Kerry Guptil and his wife made the decision last Sunday to close their small family business Suncook Canoe and Kayak shop in Barnstead, N.H. just off of route 28. I've known Kerry for a number of years and bought most of my paddling gear from him. He is a very knowledgeable paddler who treated the paddling community and his customers with fairness and true service. For openers, all people who have something in the works with him such as a custom order or repair work to a boat will have those commitments met by him. What is going to happen is that he will be open the rest of this week (Oct. 14th-16th) then it will be weekends only after this Friday. Basically the plan is to sell off everything from their present location, then in January move what is left back to their original small 400 sq foot building next to their home where they originally started in. At that point he plans on still doing boat repairs and there is a small chance he might operate on a very small scale by appointment only. During the weekdays you might find him at the garage adjacent to his shop as he will be a mechanic there, but if you are thinking about visiting the shop it is best to try to go there during his present going out of business posted hours. From this point forward all kayaks, paddles, pfd's, drysuits, footwear, variety of quality paddle wear and accessories are deeply discounted. For example he has two brand new P&H fiberglass kayaks from their Venture series (rubber hatches and skeg) that are just over 1K (below his cost). On the boat side there is still a good selection of everything from simple rec boats to 17 ft. composites, plus a nice selection of white water kayaks. On the clothing side it is all high quality products and for now most sizes represented. Directions are take Route 28 north from the Epsom traffic circle east of Concord, N.H. where route 28 and 4 meet then go about 7 or 8 miles north on Rt. 28 from the circle. Take a right onto 126 then immediately take your first right and it is the first business on the right. Their phone number is 603-269-5185

Five of us (Sid Cohen, Bill Lord, Paul Radvany, Tom Hirschfeld & Scott Kimball) met Wednesday afternoon at Old Quarry Campground then launched into a somewhat blustery wind from the South-West and paddled over to Hell's Half Acre Island with enough time to set up camp, string a tarp and cook a dinner. The plan was that each person be responsible for a meal and immediately Bill set the bar high with his excellent home made spaghetti and meatball dinner with garlic bread. The evening was overcast, but temperature remained comfortable. The morning brought a breakfast by Tom fit for a classic roadside diner with an omelette filled with sautéed veggies, fruit, bagels and fresh coffee from his coffee press. The day was stellar with a real blue sky, puffy clouds and mild to moderate wind. We left our base going around the north side of Bold Island then to Devils, between Millet and Spruce, down the eastern side of McGlathery, across Merchant Row to a circumnavigation of Harbor, but passed on landing on its' rocky slabs leading us to cross Merchant Row again for a nice beach on Wreck. There Paul pulled out a luncheon spread that commercial outfitters would have drooled for. Hey you only go around life once. We took some R&R time on Wreck coupled with a driftwood scavenger hunt to stash in the empty hulls for a fire that night. Tom's well traveled folding saw complete with missing nut came through as we needed to shorten our evening's fire fuel to make them fit into those pointed end boats. From Wreck we past Bare, Combs and did a stop and circumnavigation of Buckle. Some of these MITA sights we stopped and checked out seemed better suited to hammock camping then tents. From Buckle it was a short run between Camp and Devils back to camp on Hell's. That dinner was my lottery pick and boy did I struggle to get the stoves to boil when needed. Not sure why, but as the dinners patience was probably starting to wear thin waiting, I feared they would sharpen the edges of their carbon paddles to serve me a little Island Justice. Fortunately before such thoughts spread to a mutiny, meal was served and I hope they don't realize that the chicken in my sweet and sour meal came from a can. The evening was cool, clear and a mass of stars. Fire on the beach, a dash of one, two or was it three drops of wine and nobody saw a reason to be any place, but where we were. After we went to bed I was woken by the tarp flapping like the remnants of a flag on Everest as a Canadian air mass had come rumbling into town. I had to do some quick reworking of the guy lines and long branches that were being used as poles to prevent the tarp from probably becoming shredded. The winds continued to build and Sids' attempts to cook us breakfast were becoming a constant battle to keep the stoves going or directing their heat up. Even after windshields were properly adjusted and a failed attempt to set the tarp up for a wind screen it became obvious that it simply made sense to go with a cold breakfast as we still had an abundance of wonderful choices and I didn't even go grumpy for having to skip on multiple cups of coffee. At this point the winds were close to the thirty mile per hour and the entire Bay was full of white caps with spray coming off the tops of some. One lobster boat pushing through the stuff was sending wind driven water over fifteen feet up into the air from its' bow. Crossing the Bay to get to Old Quarry was looking like it might be a little more then a slugfest so after looking at our options the decision to haul the loaded boats to the backside of Hell's Half Acre and launch from there then run in the lee as much as we could using Camp and some smaller islands till we got to Potato then cut across to Russ and use it to buffer us to get over to the mainland then work our way along the shore till we had to cross Webb Cove. Near Humpkin's Ledge we were slowed to a little over a one kph pace for a short section demonstrating what kind of horsepower we would have had to try to generate to have made it as a direct crossing from Hell's. We had almost all of that watery turf in sight completely to ourselves with only a rare lobster boat and a couple of sailboats ever in view. It is amazing what you can compress out of three days when you get a good cast of characters together and the stars and planets are willing to briefly line up to make life's journey a trip to the positive side. Cheers, Scott

This plastic Impex Mystic is on the classified section. Two feet shorter then the glass one, but cheaper. http://www.nspn.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=6384

Love to see your pictures of the Winds. I have hundreds of them, but they are all on carousels as 35 mm slides. I must be dating myself. It is one of those places where Helen Keller could have taken great shots as you couldn't loose just pointing and shooting. Scott

There is a new Impex Mystic listed on Canoe Kings web site for $1799. They are in Ossippee N.H. on Rt. 16. Who knows they might take an offer. http://www.canoeking.com/boats/specials.html It was a pleasure to paddle with you and your boy on Saturday and compare notes on the Wind Rivers

That is all I've heard and to be fair it came from somebody who was at the shop, but I do frequent his business and will happily post anything more I hear. They left their old web site host and have been rebuilding their new site, but it isn't up and running at this point in time.

I've heard that Kerry who owns Suncook Canoe and Kayak in Barnstead N.H. is supposedly bringing in a new Drysuit from Britian. What supposedly will be different on these suits is that they will have just one zipper that will run up ones' inseam, under the crotch and down the other inseam. You will pull the top on like a sweater, then step into the legs and zip. Because the zipper runs under the crotch, it will also give you your bathroom relief option.

Hi Bill and Tom, Yes I am interested in this. I have a drysuit and camping gear, but have only paddled in that area once (day trip) so I am not familiar with the lay of the land (or should I say islands) of that area, but always wanted to go back to explore. I did stay at Old Quarry, campground once so know of that. I'm in N.H. and usually paddle out of the Portsmouth area. Thanks, Scott