One man's rush to jump on the kayaking bandwagon

Today's goal was to determine if I'm really into the whole kayak thing or not. We rented a couple of kayaks from Paddle Creek and took them to Falls Lake. Jean and Suzanne joined us.

We rented a Tsunami 140 and a Cape Horn 160. We all swapped boats throughout the day. Both Suzanne and I really liked the Tsunami 140. The Cape Horn didn't do it for anyone. It may have had something to do with me getting wet while trying to get out of it. Silly me.

Since this was an official Dalton Event, we packed a lunch. It was a nice day, but the wind was blowing quite hard. At one point, we had a few little whitecaps.

I really do like the Tsunami 140. It fit's just right. It's easy to get in and out of. It feels fairly quick. And I like the color. I may have found my new boat.

"No, I don't want to buy your kayak for $500. I want to know if $500 is a good price for one just like yours. But there's a catch. It has a hole." My father in law seemed to think it was a decent price, depending on the hole.

The hole didn't seem all that bad. A paperclip test seemed to indicate that it was about 1/8th" deep and didn't go all the way through. It seemed like some simple filler would solve the problem. But, it was around 2:00PM and this was an REI garage sale. How could anything worth anything still be around at 2:00PM? Would it still be there at 4:00PM?

Here was an Old Town Dirigo 140, the exact kayak Heath wanted. Even the color was right.

We went for it. The hole was quickly filled, sanded and it seems like new.

Heath and i went out in Jean's kayaks today. She was in the SOT and I was in here little blue bathtub.

We rode up and down on the boat wakes in the channel for a while and actually made a little progress against the current. I had a blast. Heath really wants to get kayaks and I think I'm sold on the idea as well.