Mark, try www.adventurekayakmag.com to try to read Dowd's essay. You may have to subscribe in order to access the article, but I don't know for sure. Doug, I appreciate the AK "diatribes", as I've followed with enormous interest over the decades the course of how sea kayaking is viewed by the public at large, by the growing number of "kayakers", and by the greybeards (like me) who were around when there weren't a whole lot of people paddling any sort of kayak on open water. The AK diatribes I've seen so far, by people like Dowd and Hutchinson, remind me of the old saying about the French ancien regime--they learn nothing, and they forget nothing.