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JPEOPLE I Bernie Gray recalls kayaking trip to Florida By Jack Evans the Intelligencer Some 2,500 miles from Point Traverse in Prince Edward Coun- ty to Key West, Florida in 18 weeks was the saga seasoned sailor/kayaker Bernard (Bernie) Gray related to the Rotary Club of Belleville this week. Gray delivered his talk with his sea-worn kayak, Hagar Twa, stretched in front of the head table in the Ramada Inn Park Room to an attentive and enthusi- astic audience. It was a great trip, he summed up, but he admitted he wished at several points that "somebody would steal my kgyak so I didn't have to'carry on." That seemed to happen espe- cially on days of strong winds and confusing seas. But warmed by the many per- sonal friendships and favors he had experienced along the way, Gray paddled on. Right from the start, the trip was fraught with incorrect infor; mation. "What was promised to be a calm, moonlight night (on June 28 when he set out from Point Tra- verse) was windy, rainy and a course putting-off northwest wind," he recalled. "Nothing was right." , Delayed a couple of hours, and with the help of the United States Coast Guard, he finally made it to his first destination of Oswego having been fixed in his tiny kayak for over 12 hours. "I slept like a log," he said. There followed a delightful trip down the old Erie Canal system with lock keepers putting him through at no charge and giving him much assistance, and "many impressive views, especially West Point," he said. But in the con- fined waters of the canal system, there were some "heavy wakes" at times, especially from the likes of 200-foot barges being pushed by tugboats. And along the canal was a "graveyard of old industrial build- ings," he noted. As he got further south, Ameri- cans took great interest in his adventure, made much of his age "I didn't think of myself at 56 as old" -- and noticing his pro- nounced Scottish burr, often asked: "Does everyone talk like that up there?" constipation .\ Cure for