Whoever picked the date for last weekend’s New England Paddle Sports Show at the University of New Hampshire in Durham deserves a gold star.

What a perfect weekend to get the paddling juices flowing! On Saturday, in back of the gymnasium where the show was held, there was a track meet. Students were all over campus in shorts and T-shirts, the temperature was mid- to high 60s and on Sunday it was even warmer. As I drove out of town Sunday after lunch, I had all the windows rolled down, and everywhere I looked students were sprawled on lawns in the warmth of the day. The only thing missing was green grass, although there were signs here and there of greening.

(I kept reminding myself of those images on Tuesday as I drove through snow showers on my way to Calais. The snowplow I saw at Alexander shook me back to reality, though.)

This show is sponsored by Kittery Trading Post and it’s primarily a sales event with everything in sight marked 10 percent off. Since there is no sales tax in New Hampshire, it’s like getting 15 percent off for Maine consumers. And the long lines at the cash registers were testament to the fact that sales were brisk.

I talked with Mark Burgoin, a sales representative with Old Town Canoe, who said the company moved a bunch of boats, well more than 100. When last I saw him he was looking a bit peaked from having run back and forth from the display area in the gym to the field house where boats were stored. Old Town’s Scott Phillips was also on hand and looking quite busy as well.

Other company representatives reported sales were brisk.

For someone like me who goes just to check out new gear and equipment, it’s a bit frustrating. Sales representatives are willing to talk about their products only so long before they’re off to push a sale on a willing buyer.

While most of the show is a sales event, there was a good selection of lectures and demonstrations offered throughout the day in the pool and in two classrooms in the gym’s lower level. I took in a slideshow of paddling the upper northwest coast of Washington put on by Steve Sherrer, co-designer of the Wilderness Systems Tempest sea kayak family. He took up serious white-water kayaking in 1980 and began teaching white-water in 1985. He started Alder Creek Kayak Supply Inc. with two partners in 1986 in a garage on the Sandy River in Oregon. After seeing pictures of some of the places he paddles in sea kayaks, it’s not hard to understand his white-water roots.

There is some spectacular water in that neck of the country. Around the mouth of the Columbia River it can be wild. And up the coast to the Strait of Juan de Fuca there was some awesome coastal scenery, the most intriguing being sea caves ranging in size from a few yards across to some 100 or more feet tall. And the waves and surf in places were unbelievable! Sherrer had pictures of paddlers in water I’d be content to watch. One picture showed a paddling buddy headed down the face of a breaking wave poised like a cobra hood ready to envelop him in the next instant. It hit with enough force to crack the gel coat on his boat, Sherrer said.

For awhile Saturday I hung around the Maine Association of Sea Kayak Guides and Instructors booth talking with Bill Baker of Old Quarry Ocean Adventures in Stonington and Robert Shaw of National Park Kayak Tours in Bar Harbor. They were kept busy answering questions from a steady stream of folks interested in visiting Maine and paddling our waters. On Sunday morning I returned to man the booth for a few hours. The crowd was not as big, but it seemed to be getting bigger by the time I left around 1 p.m.

In the few lulls I had, I wandered across the aisle to visit with Vaughan Smith, who is a sales representative for Necky Kayaks. He and his wife, Shelley Johnson, are familiar faces in the Maine sea kayaking community. Johnson has written articles for Atlantic Coastal Kayaker, Kayak Touring, and Adventure Journal and has served as sea kayak techniques editor and sea kayak field editor for Canoe and Kayak magazine. She recently published Sea Kayaker’s Pocket Guide and The Complete Sea Kayaker’s Handbook. Together she and Smith have authored Guide to Sea Kayaking in Maine. They have produced a sea kayaking safety video “What Now? Sea Kayak Rescue Techniques” and they’ve taught sea kayaking courses.

Smith did pool demonstrations on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday while Johnson presented at two seminars.

On Sunday Amy Kersteen, formerly with the Maine Island Trail Association, stopped next door at the MITA booth and we chatted prior to her seminar presentation on the trail and island stewardship.

And what kayaking gathering wouldn’t be complete without Derek Hutchinson, whose claim to fame is being responsible for introducing the modern sport of sea kayaking into North America. He has authored several books on sea kayaking and rescue techniques (Eskimo Rolling, The Basic Book of Sea Kayaking, The Complete Book of Sea Kayaking, and Expedition Kayaking) and he’s one heck of a raconteur. If you get a chance to listen to his tale of the first crossing of the English Channel by kayak, jump at the chance. It’s a hoot.

While I didn’t get a chance to hear his presentation, I did get to say a quick hello. He probably didn’t remember me, but he smiled politely.

While I was tending the MASKGI booth on Sunday, my paddling mentor Karen Francoeur was schmoozing the dealers, looking for deals on new equipment. When last I saw her she was chatting with Tom Remsing, a sales representative for Eddyline Kayaks, Mitchell Paddles, and Bell Canoe Works. So I wasn’t surprised then on Tuesday when I stopped by her place in Orono to pick up a display board for the upcoming Paddle Smart Safety Symposium on May 14 to see an Eddyline kayak demo boat sitting on her car.

Paddle Smart Symposium May 14

And speaking of Paddle Smart, fellow guide Mark Goff and I got busy Thursday morning and hung the banners advertising this year’s event at the downtown Y’s. It’s our fifth outing and you’re all welcome to attend this informative and free event. If you go past the Hammond Street location, you’ll see the now-familiar yellow kayak and blaze-orange banner over the door. And over on the corner of Union and Second streets you’ll see another one hung between the flagpole and a tree. For the tree climbing, we deferred to Andy Orazio, director of operations for the Y’s. He was up that tree like a monkey and had a line tied off in an instant. Thanks, Andy. I don’t do trees very well.

We’ve moved the event this year to a Saturday (May 14) afternoon and to the former YWCA, which has two pools instead of the one at the Hammond Street location. Our hope this year is that by having the symposium on a Saturday afternoon we’ll reach more people, especially families.

The festivities kick off at 1 p.m. and will run to 5 p.m. or so, depending on how long it takes to award door and raffle prizes.

There will be interactive workshops on choosing a life jacket and the right boat, navigation for kayaking, understanding the tides, low-impact kayaking (MITA), essential equipment for kayaking and how to pack it, on-water communication, GPS navigation, and in-pool demonstrations of which boats float, which don’t, and how-to rescue techniques essential for every paddler to know.

Displays in the gymnasium include choosing a paddle, fitting a lifejacket, maps and navigation aids, MITA, the Maine Outdoor Adventure Club, the U.S. Coast Guard, Marine Patrol, Friends of Maine Sea Birds, MASKGI, Lyme disease and prevention, Penobscot Riverkeepers, Forestry Society of Maine, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Epic Sports, Castine Kayak Adventures, Penobscot Paddle and Chowder Club, and more.

This year, for the first time there will be opportunities for people to try out boats in the pool. If you’ve been considering a kayak, this is a great chance to sit in one on the water and see how it fits and feels. While you won’t be able to paddle it very far, you’ll get a good idea of how it’ll perform for you.

Call Epic Sports at 941-5670 or Castine Kayak Adventures at 866-3506 for more information, or go to www.castinekayak.com and click on the Paddle Smart box on the right just below the row of pictures.

Jeff Strout can be reahced at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.