Subscribe
SportsCan you kayak?
Friday, May 9, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by REID SILVERMAN
Cara Fogarty, director of communications for the Greenwell Foundation, takes a break during Saturday’s paddle.
|
E-Mail This Article
Jolanda Campbell, instructor with the River Riders Kayaking program, took participants in a ‘‘spring paddle” down to the boat launch at Greenwell State Park in Hollywood on Saturday morning.
Before the group set out down the Patuxent River, Campbell spent time with all those newer to kayaking. She offered tips on how to paddle most effectively. ‘‘You want to relax ... Use your whole body. Don’t just use your arms or you’ll get tired,” she said.
And she eased nerves about the possibility of tipping over. ‘‘The first thing you want to do when you get in the water ... [is] to check how tippy it is,” she said, suggesting that the kayak isn’t ‘‘tippy” at all and that she can even stand up in her kayak out on the river without flipping over.
‘‘Ready?” she asked.
One by one, the nine participants in the paddle, with about half of the group experienced and half with little or no experience, were given life jackets, situated in their kayaks and shoved out into Quarter Creek. She and other River Riders instructors watched to see how the initiates navigated the creek and practiced turning, stopping and trying to keep a straight course. Everyone was doing OK.
And then, the trip stopped being about how to maneuver the kayak, and it became about the creeks and inlets and Patuxent River that the group explored on its way upstream to the Sotterley Plantation shoreline and back. It was about the spring weather and the wildlife that lives around the river and the sun reflecting off the water.
‘‘This is my favorite thing to do ... to introduce people to the river,” Campbell said during a break in the paddling up the Patuxent River, as she sat back in her kayak for a moment and scanned the river ahead and the coastline to her side.
A slight breeze ruffled the leaves on the trees that line the river and songbirds kept up a chorus all along the way.
Participants saw an eagle’s nest near the top of one tree, with an eagle flapping its wings in its home. A brown water snake glided by the group, and so did a muskrat. The kayakers also saw a groundhog on the shore and a heron watching the group paddle by.
It’s this magic of nature and the way kayaking quietly allows a person to participate in that magic that Campbell wants people to know about, she said.
She started kayaking herself only several years ago, and she was immediately hooked. ‘‘I got into a kayak three years ago ... and I thought, whoa. It’s so wonderful,” she said. ‘‘When you’re on the water and it’s still and quiet and you glide along ... you become one with the water.”
Campbell also saw how kayaking would fit in with the mission of Greenwell State Park, to provide inclusive programs that just about anyone, regardless of disability, could enjoy.
Last year, Greenwell began its River Riders program, which offers guided kayaking trips with trained instructors, usually with a theme — like the beginners spring paddle on Saturday, or moonlight paddles, family paddles, sunset paddles or river exploration trips. The hope is that the program will open up the river and the sport of kayaking to the entire community.
And to make sure that the program is inclusive, Greenwell requested and received funding from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for a special $95,000 kayak and canoe launch that makes the water more accessible to people of all abilities, even those who use wheelchairs.
‘‘It’s just not a difficult sport,” Campbell said. ‘‘It doesn’t take eight weeks of lessons. One day, and they’ll feel more comfortable on the water.”
Irene Gray of Lexington Park was one of the participants in Saturday’s trip. Before she got into her kayak to start the trip, Gray laughed when she was asked if she agreed that anyone could do it. ‘‘I’m going to find out,” she said.
She had kayaked before and said she could do it, ‘‘but not very forcefully,” she said. ‘‘I’m guessing I could use some coaching, some practice.”
At the end of the trip, Gray said, ‘‘It was easier than I’d expected.”
David Hartful of Lexington Park, another newer kayaker with the group, was also enthusiastic about the trip as he helped carry the kayaks back up from the launch at the trip’s end. ‘‘It was awesome,” he said. ‘‘Good for the shoulders, I think.
‘‘I never really did much outdoor stuff before. But this was cool ... doing it in a group.”
Greenwell is hoping others in the region take advantage of the River Riders program.
‘‘You want to be on the water.You want to enjoy the beauty,”Campbell said. ‘‘There’s a mystique about it.”
