> I am about to finish the book The Essential Sea Kayaker by
> David Seidman and Andy Singer. What I have learned is that I know
> essentially nothing about sea kayaking. I can paddle in a straight line,
> and realize there is just so much more to my new favorite passtime. Or at
> least it will be my favorite passtime once I finish building my kayak. Ok,
> now to my question. I would like to take a sea kayaking course in order to
> at least learn the basic paddling techniques. I live in CT and spend a lot
> of time in VT. Does anyone know of a good course offered in either state?
> If not, how about somewhere in the Northeast?

Good question, Fritz. There are an awful lot of good books for winter reading --- while the epoxy cures --- and a lot of good organizations around to support newbies. Would offer the help of the Chesapeake Paddler Association (CPA), but we're not exactly in your back yard. There are a number of New York area organizations, and an excellent tour guide for that part of the world is a gent named Ralph Diaz (rdiaz@ix.netcom.com). He wrote the book (The Complete Folding Kayaker, Radded Mountain Press, 1994) on bagboats --- with some excellent read-acrosses into regular sea kayaking, by the way --- and he's very approachable on all northeastern paddling resources. You'll find there are a lot of good resources available on the net, as well.

If you want to find out what winter paddling is all about, the CPA is planning a cold water workshop, "Y2Kold", in Annapolis in January. Lemme know if you want details.

Jack Martin