-- Last Updated: Jun-22-12 1:21 PM EST --
Many beginning paddlers don't even know the
ACA exists , let alone trains paddlers in USA.
http://www.americancanoe.org/
If retailers merely gave potential customers
info from the ACA on where to get instruction
the number of water related deaths would drop.
The USA is surrounded on 3 sides by ocean, and
has countless creeks, streams, rivers and lakes.
Paddling is a LEARNED skill, just like golf.
Millions hack at it and think they know.
A lifetime is spent learning about nature.
Putting a tush in a cockpit doesn't make that
person a kayaker/canoeist anymore than putting
a tush in airplane makes that person a pilot.