A Place To Begin....

A START....

Welcome to my new blog. My name is Paul Garfinkel. I live in Northeast Florida and am retired at 63. My wife and I recently took up kayaking after spending some time with friends in the Ocala National Forest near Juniper Springs and later trying our very first paddling test using my sister-in-law's boats on the northern chain of lakes in central Florida. We fell in love with being on the water -- a natural thing as I have been an environmental advocate for many years and a Florida Master Naturalist. 

Being very interested in learning everything I can about those things I love, now including paddling, I set about looking for information on kayaking for folks over that "certain age", but came up largely empty. Oh, there are sites that that hit on issues related to older paddlers, but nothing specifically dedicated just to folks like us. So since we are at the very beginning of our journey on the water I thought I'd try to provide that resource.

On the Saint Johns River at Mandarin, Florida - second time out

I am no paddling expert and make no pretense of having any special knowledge. But I do have resources --- including friends who have been paddling for decades, so why not document our path from total rookies to, well, whatever lies ahead. We will certainly make mistakes and learn from them, and we will have many more successes and revel in them.

So by way of concluding this little introduction, I have flexibility problems and a bum right hip, but am otherwise in great health. I start nearly every day with a 4 mile walk. My wife, Kay has degenerative disk disease in her neck and back but is also a regular walker. We both love camping in our lightweight 17" Coachmen trailer. Florida's State Parks are amazing.  She'll be contributing to the blog as well as we move along. I expect that we're pretty typical of folks our age with an interest in being outdoors and active as much as possible. I'm also a pretty advanced photography hobbyist, which should come in handy for a project like this, though I confess that I am not yet confident enough to bring my good gear out on the boat. What we have right now are iPhone shots. Florida offers so much in terms of quiet water paddling opportunities and wilderness (for now at least)....

I'll do my best to be timely with installments of "Kayaking Over 60", including regular reports of our outings that are currently happening about once or twice per week. The next installment will be about our "training" kayaks, what we bought, why we chose them, and how they're working out for us. Hope we can interest a few like minds along the way.

To the water!!

On the Saint Johns River at Mandarin - second time out