photo courtesy of DEP

With August more than halfway over, now is the time for paddler enthusiasts to strap on their life jackets and make plans to participate in the upcoming kayaking events for the 2010/2011 paddling season. Kicking off the season in Cedar Key on September 18 is the first ever Hidden Coast Paddling Festival which runs through September 25. The eight-day event begins Saturday at dawn with the First Annual Kayak Fishing Tournament. Afternoon weigh-in will be followed by a clam bake hosted by the Cedar Key Aquaculture Association – free to participants, and later paddlers will be treated to Movies in the Park featuring A River Runs Through It, directed by Robert Redford. On Sunday, a guided paddling/walking tour of Atsena Otie will precede the departure to the Suwannee River.

Festival events on Monday will include paddling from Fanning to Manatee Springs followed by movies and socializing during the afternoon and evening. On Tuesday paddlers will embark on a guided trip into the backwaters of the Suwannee River Delta. Tuesday evening, the Suwannee Chamber of Commerce will host a Chicken and Rice dinner with all the ‘fixin’s’ followed by a presentation by Eye of the Eagle Wildlife Sanctuary veterinarian Dr. Dawn Miller, featuring live birds.

Wednesday’s event begins at Horseshoe Beach with breakfast optional in the Horseshoe Beach Café, followed by self-guided tours to Shired Island and/or Butler Island. Dinner will be available for menu prices and two local historians will share information about the area. Thursday morning the Horseshoe Beach Library will provide a pancake breakfast (library donations will be gratefully accepted). Kayak adventures include two separate trips – one to Fireworks Island, the other to Butler Island.

On Thursday evening a ‘Meet & Greet’ will be held at Steinhatchee’s River Haven Marina. Friday’s breakfast is scheduled for 6 a.m. with paddling on your own to follow. Dinner will be available at the River House for $7. Saturday the 25th, breakfast begins the final day of festival paddling. To learn more about the first annual Hidden Coast Paddling Festival and about paddlers’ dinner discounts, go to http://hiddencoast.net/hcpf1.html.

Next on the paddling calendar is the tried and true, and always exciting, Calusa Blueway Festival to be held October 29-November 7, 2010, www.calusabluewaypaddlingfestival.com. Other paddling adventures, arranged by Paddle Florida who is known for its guided group trips on the Suwannee River, include an ambitious schedule covering regions throughout the state. Between Christmas and New Year’s, December 27-30, 2010 a 36-mile paddling trip down the Wekiva and St. Johns rivers is planned. This is closely followed by the second annual 42-mile Peace River trip over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, January 14-17, 2011. The Florida Keys is on tap for President’s Day weekend, February 18-21, 2011. And spring break for many college students works in well for the seven-day Ochlockonee River trip in the Big Bend, March 12-18, 2011. For more information, log on to http://www.paddleflorida.com/. To learn more about the state’s longest and most ambitious sea kayaking trail, the Florida Circumnavigational Saltwater Paddling Trail, visit www.dep.state.fl.us/gwt/paddling/saltwater.htm.

For some of us that are over forty it is easy to forget that all this new technology is more than fun and games. There are some situations where it can be very useful. We didn’t grow up with it all, we still remember playing the original Pong, and though we’re embarrassed to admit it, just the fact that we could turn that little knob and actually make the paddle move up and down the television screen was just beyond belief. We could effect what was happening on our TV, how cool was that?

I recently read a report on CNN’s website about James Karl Buck. On April 10th, he and his translator,  Mohammed Maree were covering an anti-government protest in Mahalla, Egypt, when they were arrested.

Buck thought fast and, using a site called Twitter, was able to post a one word message, “arrested”. Almost instantly his friends and colleagues in both the United States and Egypt knew what had happened. I’m not going to go into all the details but please go read the whole story on CNN.com.

My point in bringing this up, besides admitting that I’m “older”, is the fact that because Buck thought quickly and made use of a technology that he had only been using for a week, people knew what had happened and were able to help get the word out. It provided a safety net in case he and his interpretor were to “fall off the radar screen”.

Those of us that didn’t grow up with all this new technology need to keep in mind just how useful it can be. It might be the difference between a happy ending to a situation and one that could easily turn to tragedy.

The other thing us “older” people remember was a safer world. There were definitely dangerous places but things have changed and the over all safety that we enjoyed is a thing of the past, even in our everyday lives and right here in our own country.

Maybe, as a generation, we should make more of a point of embracing the new tools that surround us and think of more uses for them than just fun and games, and keeping in touch with family members or friends around the world. Those are great uses for them but as James Buck demonstrated, there are much more serious and beneficial ways to utilize them.