Solstice - and Pool Sessions PSA Time

HOORAY! It's SOLSTICE! Now the days start getting longer again! HIP HIP HOORAY!

Now that means winter, and it's getting kind of cold outside, only mad people (like me) want to fall in the water outside now, so sure as the swallows return to to Capistrano, the kayakers are returning to...

messing about in boats in pools! This is one way in which a kayak is a great little boat - when it gets too cold for you outside (and of course "too cold" varies from person to person, and for any individual person the threshold drops with experience), you just take you little boat indoors & yay, time to play!

I've gotten announcements about a couple in the area -

The Appalachian Mountain Club will be offering pool time (byo boat) as usual at the Greenwich YWCA - they also have a lesson option - details here!

The Small Boat Shop will be offering their usual winter pool options, classes in Fundamentals and Rolling, this year in New Haven - they also have practice time slots with SBS equipment available at a reasonable rate during the rolling classes - check out TheSmallBoatShop.com for details...

More silliness from last year in Greenwich - remember the Fishing Pole Roll?


If you can make it a little further north, Cheri & Turner of Kayakways will be teaching in Wallingford - they co-host these with Connyak & so there are both instruction (with great instructors & fit-like-a-glove Greenland boats) or pool time only (BYO boat) options.

Been hearing rumours about others but that's all the solid info I've got at the moment, plus I'm running out of lunch hour & have to get back to work -

one more pool silliness video - remember, always let the lifeguard know before you do your hang time practice -



and make sure your friends are out of the way before you go crazy with the storm rolls!


yep, pool sessions are FUN!

BTW I knew solstice was in here somewhere but I found out for sure today on Proper Course. Tillerman offers an interesting short essay on solstice celebrations past & present. Ale drinking is mentioned. I'm down with that. I'm just happy the days start getting longer now - boy, the first day I was in Texas wasn't a very pretty one, sort of gray & overcast, but it made me rather ludicrously pleased when I discovered that in Texas, there's still a little daylight at 5:30. I hate it when I manage to escape work at a decent hour & it's pitch black outside.

Although the long days in the summer do make up for it some.