Sea Kayaking is big business in Florida

Back when I paddled south along the Gulf coast of Florida on the sea kayak journey that eventually took me to the Caribbean, seeing other sea kayakers was a rare event. Today kayakers are everywhere. Well, maybe not so many traveling in touring kayaks, but at least there are a lot of day paddlers out there, especially on sit-on-top models and other recreational boats.

I spoke to some paddling clubs shortly after returning from my trip, both in north Florida and in Mississippi and Louisiana. All of these at the time consisted of mixed groups of kayakers and canoeists. Now there are plenty of dedicated sea kayaking clubs scattered throughout the Deep South and especially in Florida.

After sending out press releases to some of these about my new book: On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean, I've been invited to speak to some of these paddling enthusiasts, like the Tampa Bay Sea Kayakers, who I will visit in July. Tampa is really where I began the journey after my false start in Mississippi, so this should be an interesting place to start talking to other paddlers. I plan to focus my discussion on solo paddling, since this seems to be a fascinating subject for most kayakers, even if they have no plans to ever paddle alone themselves. The folks at Florida Bay Outfitters in Key Largo have invited me to come down and sign books at a weekend kayaking event they host in February. That should be a fine time to spend a few days in the Keys. I'll take my trusty old Necky Tesla (the same boat in which I did the trip) and plan to paddle somewhere and camp a few nights while I'm there. It would be cool to revisit some of the hidden campsites where I stayed on the original trip.

In the meantime I'll be working to stir up more interest in the book and in solo sea kayaking in general, and plan to meet with and speak to a lot more paddling groups anywhere there is an interest.