For addiditional motivation see the article by David Hu, et al., in the 7 August 2003 issue of Nature (vol 424, pg 663) The hydrodynamics of water strider locomotion.

Denny, in a previous report, had remarked that baby water striders move their legs more slowly than the minimum speed of a wave, and thus could not transfer momentum to water and thus walk. Hu et al. show that the strider legs generate vortexes in the water, and thus do not depend on surface waves for traction.