Awesome Randy!

Safe, competent, sea kayakers. We used to have a Sea Kayak Trip Chair, and one of their responsibilities was to "approve" new trip leaders. That's one of the positions that has become vacant during Covid. In the interim, I will defer you to the President, Tomas (flyfishingguy@gmail.com) but based on your experience it certainly sounds like you would know how to select a trip that is both fun and not too challenging for a group (which is the whole idea)!

I have quite a bit of experience leading ski trips with Washington Ski Touring Club and the Mountaineers and well as quite a bit of experience with sea kayak trips in Washington, British Columbia and Baja. What's the procedure for being qualified to lead trios for the WKC?

I echo Dale... I believe there remains a lot of interest on the Sea Kayak side within the club. But what the club lost during Covid, is Sea Kayak leadership. The state of the SK calendar has certainly been unfortunate over the past couple years. WKC has always been a great group to paddle with, and one of the very few clubs that that actually provides its members with liability insurance when on the water. 

If you or anyone is interested in posting a trip to the WKC calendar, please contact Tomas at flyfishingguy@gmail.com and he will help you get it setup. Or, like Dale said, bug your paddling buddies to post their trip. I have faith in the "post it and they will come" mantra!

Be the change that you want to see.

Clubs rely on members, like me... and you... to step up to help our fellow members get out on the water.

Unfortunately, the Omicron variant is flourishing. Way too many people I know have COVID even as we speak(mostly non paddlers). Yes, it makes planning difficult. What are you gonna do? It looks like Omicron may burn itself out in the next couple months, so I would expect trips will be more common in the upcoming year.

The whitewater boaters have been chugging right on along(we are helpless, hopeless junkies after all). We mask up, roll the windows down for shuttles, try to stay out of each other's faces and we try to paddle well within our skill level to avoid rescues, etc... As far as I can tell, this has been working well.

If you don't want to, or don't feel qualified to coordinate a trip, then you might try the Tom Sawyer approach that I rely on so heavily. Try to trick... err... talk others into leading trips. Try to instigate an outdoor trip planning party or maybe even a seakayaker takeover of the club.

Ask not what the club can do for you. Ask what you can do for the club!

I have to figure out whether it's worthwhile to renew my membership. I don't paddle rivers.

For the past 2 years there were close to zero sea kayaking trips.I understand that covid was a factor but I also sense that there isn't much interest /energy and that sea kayakers have aged out or gone elsewhere.