Sweetwater Kayaks, St. Pete's, Florida


Yesterday was another day of running around gathering input from locals and putting together all the clues of what to do. Mission accomplished. The rest of the week will be spent "doing"!

I had the great pleasure of meeting Russell Farrow yesterday at Sweetwater Kayaks, an expedition paddler with all the credentials. He is overly tan (by Canadian standards), as are all Floridians, tall and lean with long silver hair and the trademark stubble of a guy just returning from an expediton. He has a beautiful, big, three-year-old German Shepherd dog named Cedric who would not sit still for a shot.

Russell had just gotten back from a trip to Baja. He's a guy to interview if you are a writer or journalist . . . if you can catch him! He's busy. Some have. I asked him if he would post the interesting story of his "Vacation from Hell" that I saw framed on the wall of his store. Cross fingers.

He had a blog that timed out and so is now lost, but the good news is that he is working on another one. He hasn't published it yet because he wants to build the content first.

I took a lot of pics yesterday, and which one made today's post? Russell's shower curtain. He'll probably hate me for that. But he's got lots of great pics of boats on his site so go there for more on that.

If you visit Sweetwater Kayaks, make sure to visit the restroom! The interesting shower curtain inside quickly caught my eye. It made me take a second look, fish out my camera and take a picture. It is made of some type of fibre, not plastic, vinyl or nylon, bold and striking. There were real sea shells sewn onto it. There must be a story behind it? I wanted to ask Russell, but I'd already picked the poor guy's brain enough that day in between all his cell phone calls and other clients stopping by. I later found out his wife is a designer, and it is from her shop, Claudia's curtains.

Thanks go to Tom, a local Ottawa paddler in Ontario, Canada who suggested I check out Sweetwater Kayaks while visiting the Tampa Bay area. He asked me to say hi to Russell for him. I did.

Happy paddles.
The BaffinPaddler

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