Bobby Curtis was in his mid 50's when he began sea kayaking in the 1990's. "At the time there weren't many people sea kayaking along the Connecticut shoreline. The allure of paddling and camping on coastal islands was something I had always dreamed of doing".

A solo trip along some islands in coastal Maine was all it took for him to become obsessed with sea kayaking. "Learning to navigate with a compass and chart became fascinating. In a sea kayak one could chose conditions from the serene to the foreboding".

Most of Bobby's paddling skills were learned from books and tips from friends. Local sea kayaking clubs were just forming. First there was MASK (Metropolitan Association Of Sea Kayakers) followed by ConnYak (Connecticut Sea Kayakers). As time passed, more people were paddling and sharing what they learned. A longtime dream of paddling around Manhattan Island was realized and repeated many times. Additional solo and group paddling trips in the Canadian Maritimes and along the Northeast coastline brought many pleasant and sometimes exciting experiences.

With all this paddling experience, Bobby still found kayak rolling very difficult. "Confusion gained precedent over logic whenever I found myself upside down and underwater. In the mid 1990's after having attended the Delmarva Retreat, I found I could actually roll a kayak with a Greenland paddle. I then began a quest to gradually replace the euro paddle with a Greenland paddle. Eventually I began making my own Greenland paddles and after awhile, rolling became more of a pleasure rather than an exercise in futility. I've never gone back to a euro paddle after that".

Along the way Bobby owned and tried many types of kayaks. "Being small in size (5' 4), it was always difficult to perform a sufficient layback on the commercial kayaks that were available. In 1998 I started building wooden kayaks, first from kits and then from my own designs. The final result was a kayak based upon the West Greenland style that enabled me to sit comfortably when upright and also lay directly on to the back deck with ease while rolling and bracing". Bobby has a website where he shares his kayak building experience.

Bobby Curtis is the editor of the MASIK, Qajaq USA's newsletter.