Friday, January 01, 2010

Catching up on 2009 - kayaks!



I  absolutely love living by the river - I love watching the water flow by, checking how high it's running, and in summer, the variety of objects and people that float by. We see pool toys, huge party rafts, and all manner of inflatable rafts.

By mid-summer, I had convinced Ed that we needed to join their ranks, so we started "shooting the 'Hooch'"in a little inflatable canoe/kayak I had bought during residency, and had a great time for several weekends.

However, Ed wanted to be able to paddle upstream over the shoals rather than just enjoy the mild whitewater going downstream, so we determined that we needed hard-sided kayaks - he he  he - just part of my plan. ;)  I have wanted to own a kayak for many years. For the next couple months with every available weekend, we threw ourselves into research - reading about, borrowing, and renting kayaks to see what worked best for us. We even took lessons! Finally, we settled on the Pamlico 100 from Wilderness Systems. For anyone else out there who is interested, we think it's the perfect cross-over kayak - great length, great tracking and maneuverability, lets us paddle up over shoals as well as enjoy up to class II rapids, has a very comfortable seat, terrific dry hatch and access to it.


The maiden voyage of our brand new kayaks!

The kayaks have been living on our back porch - here we're trying to gently introduce some young friends to sitting in them so they'll be comfortable in them next spring. We love that the cockpit (opening) is big enough for a small child to sit in front of you!



When my parents visited, Ed was excited about taking my dad out on the kayaks, and made sure he got plenty of land-based instruction before they took off.


No worries, though - my dad is a natural on the water and had a great time!

The boys setting out on their paddle - hopefully there will be many more of those to come!

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