The Paddling Blog

Last week, I had an idea of driving up to Vermont for a day or two of spring at Killington. As I got to the actual planning stage though, I had second thoughts. Taking off would leave important chores undone and after a ton of windshield time for work and traveling up to Plattsburgh for graduation last week, I was not looking forward to hours of driving.

I made the decision to skip Superstar this year. I spent Saturday mowing grass and taking care of the yard. When I was done, I put some effort into organizing my garage, which had the added benefit of locating all my kayaking gear, PFDs, paddles, bilge pumps, everything.

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Early this summer, Ripitz reached out to me about the Newburgh to Beacon Swim. He was swimming to help raise money for The River Pool in Beacon. He asked if I’d be interested in volunteering as a kayak safety escort. I thought it was a cool idea so, once I’d checked that my schedule was open. “Where do I sign up?” Rip directed me to their website.

Before the day of the swim the organizers had a meeting which I joined via Zoom. They explained things thoroughly. Our job was to keep an eye on the swimmers, provide something for them to grab onto if they needed to rest and call in a jet ski or motorboat if somebody needed to come out of the water.

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