Sunday was the third annual OOPTIKS symposium, and this year it was held in my backyard, at Skamokawa Vista Park. OOPTIKS is sort of a cross between SSTIKS, the South Sound Traditional Inuit Kayaking Symposium and OOPS, the Oregon Ocean Paddling Society, a Portland area kayaking club. OOPTIKS was started three years ago, as a way to get the instructors from SSTIKS together with the folks in OOPS who were interested in learning more about Greenland style paddling.

There were about 35 attendees and about 15 instructors this year, and the weather, which has persisted in being kind of cold and cloudy and rainy lately, broke open into a beautiful sunny day for this event. In the morning, there were a variety of strokes classes and then at lunch there was a short harpoon throwing demo. After lunch, things split up into games, more strokes classes, and a very heavy contingent of people wanting to learn Greenland style rolling techniques.

As usual, I had a hard time getting good pictures in the bright light, and then loading them to Flickr, where most of my pix are hosted, seems to bleach them out even more, but here’s a few of them anyway. Enjoy!