Peter Carter’s home page

I live in Adelaide, South Australia, and worked for too long as a teacher and lecturer at primary, tertiary and secondary level (in that order). The post-nominals: BA, BEd, Dip Ed, MACS (Snr), OAM.

The Medal of the Order of Australia was conferred on Australia Day 2020, ‘For Services to Canoeing’. If there’s any secret there, it’s to be involved in something you like doing and help others participate and develop.

I’m now a freelance technical writer, editor (former member of the Society of Editors (SA), typesetter for Aus Medicines Handbook, occasional HTML hacker (nothing fancy here — I’m more interested in content than eye candy, and this site is edited with BBEdit, not a WYSIWYG editor), and kayaking and canoeing instructor.

Why do I wear a spanner hung around my neck? Here’s an explanation.

Current editing work

Searchlight, the magazine of the SA Sea Rescue Squadron. (I’m a Radio Operator), various reports and the 2019 edition of the Seamanship manual.

Other interests...

Paddling: canoe and kayak

• Paddle Australia Canoeing Instructor (formerly Senior Sea Instructor), former member of Education and Safety Technical Committee, Life Member (2017). Much of the Qualification Scheme resource documentation is my work.
• Former Secretary, Investigator Canoe Club
• Former Secretary, Adelaide Canoe Club
• Member, Paddle South Australia: Education and Safety Technical Committee
• Developer and sometime builder, Voyager sea kayak and the Platypus BAT

Here’s Platypus BAT No 50 on its side, demonstrating sculling for support, in the summer of 1975–76.

I have no pictures of myself paddling Sprint but in the late 1970s we paddled Slalom on whatever water we could find. The C1 is a Cuda Max

Something more recent: in the West Beach marina after being at sea for a couple of hours. The kayak is a Valley Etain: new decklines are visible, foot pump and cockpit mods are not.

For some information on sea kayaking, I have brief historical details on the Australian scene with links to Australian and overseas sites, and a number of papers, listed at left

Cycling and HPVs

To get about the place, I have a choice of two Moulton bicycles and a Greenspeed recumbent trike. Which I choose depends on where I’m going and what I’m doing.

• Former Editor, Cycle!, the magazine of Bicycle South Australia, the largest recreational cycling group in South Australia, 1992–2017.
  

Computing

• Editor, S Aus Apple Users Club AppleSauce 1993–2012
  
• Member (retd), Australian Computer Society

In the past

Flying

I was always interested in flying, and held a PPL mid-1960s–mid 1980s. Here’s the Port Lincoln Flying Club’s C-172 VH-RBG sharing the tarmac at Adelaide Airport with TAA Viscount and DC-9 on 15 Nov 1968. (Security would prohibit that these days.) From there I flew it to Kangaroo Island for the weekend, then back to Port Lincoln. Eventually flying became more expensive than it was worth.

Sailing

I was in Port Lincoln for about five years in the 1960s and took up sailing, as one does there. The Heron was built through a group building scheme. I have no pictures of myself sailing, so this is someone else in the boat. The transom made an interesting canvas. I’m a former member of Port Lincoln Yacht Club and Henley Sailing Club. Paddling took more and more time so I finally sold the boat.

Off road

The most interesting vehicle I owned, in the 1970s, was a Steyr-Puch Haflinger. Here it is at Antechamber Bay, everything folded down for deliveries along the beach. Pedestrian on the road, but even today it would out-perform the current crop of small 4WDs off-road.

Contact...

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