I went out on a kayak for the first time! We went on Lake Michigan, but stayed pretty close to shore and it can be quite dangerous.
My kids also really loved the experience so we will look into them more after we get back to Japan.
I went out on a kayak for the first time! We went on Lake Michigan, but stayed pretty close to shore and it can be quite dangerous.
My kids also really loved the experience so we will look into them more after we get back to Japan.
Yay! I’m glad the kids liked it. Did you use sit-on-tops, or sit-insides?
Sort of relevant, here’s an older video I ran across from a day where I was out paddling and saw my wife walking our now dearly departed dog on the beach. I came in close for a look and he decided that he’d prefer to go with me.
For sure. That same day on Lake Michigan, a paddleboarder went missing. The search boats and planes are still all over the area. We’ve checked our beach for any signs but nothing’s turned up yet. So sad.
I should add I don’t think that day was truly excessively dangerous on the water for boating/kayaking but I also don’t think it was a day for paddleboarding. Some fair chop made it fun for swimmers and the like, but not ideal for watercraft/boards that need calm surfaces.
The morning news showed footage of someone paddling. The newsie said, ‘We have a live kayaker on Lake Washington.’ I thought, ‘What, as opposed to a dead kayaker? A zombie kayaker?’
@TokyoBayer: I forgot to ask if everyone received instruction, or if they just gave you kayaks and paddles and said, ‘Have fun.’
We borrowed some kayaks and paddles from the neighbor and were told to have fun.
There were several different kinds, including a sit-on-top and a sit-inside. The one large enough for me was a sit-inside.
I was surprised how easily kayaks move in the water! As well as how easy it is to paddle. Of course, my most recent experience with paddling was on a dragonboat team
(image from net)
so this wasn’t anywhere as intense.
I’m going to look into it more when we get back to Japan. It really was fun.
I played hooky from work today, and just got back from a very pleasant morning / afternoon doing some fun trolling. The good kind, that is, in my fishing kayak. Didn’t catch a thing but seaweed, but you know what they say— your worst day fishing is better than your best day working.
BTW, if anybody is not aware of a site called paddling.com, it has a great map of put-in sites for many different areas throughout the world you can drill down to if your location has marked-off sites. When you click on a location it often has comments from other users as to what to expect from the site. I live in an area with many little inland lakes and rivers, and I’ve discovered a couple ‘secret’ spots thanks to the site. Here’s a link to the map:
Amen.
The tides finally cooperated!
We took the sit-insides down to the south end of the State Park. 'Yakwife used the new Old Town, and I used her second-hand Necky Sky. She likes the Old Town better. ‘You didn’t know you were getting me a new kayak, did you?’ She found it less stable than her Necky, but it’s slipperier and she liked the way it paddled. I found the Necky to be more stable than the Old Town, but neither is as stable as my 3-foot-wide Ocean Kayak. The Necky is definitely the slowest of the three, but not bad. Sit-insides are a littl harder to get out of than my Ocean Kayak sit-on-top. I slipped getting out, and hit my arm on the combing or something. I’m like, ‘Where’s that blood coming from?’
There was another blue Necky Sky tied to a buoy. On the way back there was a guy in a boat next to it, so I paddled over to chat. He uses it to get to and from his boat, and he loves it.
I can’t read the article because it’s paywalled, but the person who shared it on Facebook wrote:
Eddyline Kayaks is closing its Burlington facility by the end of the year as it relocates its headquarters to Arkansas and expands its manufacturing operations in Mexico.
This article from January 2022 says:
Recreational kayak manufacturer Eddyline Kayaks has picked up a minority growth investment from Bentonville investment firm RZC Investments. The investment will support various growth initiatives, including the company’s plans to set up a physical presence in Northwest Arkansas. …
RZC Investments is the direct investment firm of Runway Group, a Bentonville holding company led by Steuart Walton and Tom Walton. They are grandsons of Walmart founder Sam Walton and the sons of Jim Walton, chairman and CEO of Arvest Bank Group Inc. …
Eddyline employs nearly 50 workers. It has a production facility in Washington and another in central Mexico. The Queretaro facility went online last year and is in the same industrial park where Bombardier makes Sea-Doo jet skis, and Samsung builds washers and dryers.
Brilliant!