Originally posted on September 7, 2009 at 10:14 PM
Kyle and I went kayaking this morning. Crazy, eh? He can get equipment rental from work, so we decided to take advantage of that. We went out to Lake Lewisville with them, which was amusing, because they aren’t lake kayaks. They’re actually white water models, which means they turn really, really easily because they’re a lot shorter. Good if you’re going down a really fast river. Bad if you’re out on a nearly still lake. We went in a lot of circles.
I’m much too small for those boats. The dry skirt that you put on over your torso is supposed to be skin-tight to not let water in, and then it stretches over the opening in the boat. Buttons could have easily fit in mine with me. Also, you’re supposed to sort of bow your legs out, and they press up against these pads at the top of the inside of the kayak. It should be a snug fit to balance you out. Well, I am too flexible for that, because I had to decide whether to hold my legs up against those pads with my muscles or let my knees drop six inches or so to the plastic sides of the boat. Kyle said his legs were pressing hard against his knee/leg-pads. Figures. The only thing that did fit was my life vest (or “PFD” as Kyle so officially calls it); that can be buckled really tight.
It was still fun though, because we knew that the rocking/turning debacle was going to happen. Kyle knows his canoes and kayaks, because my last summer at UT he lived with me and worked at Austin Canoe and Kayak. But in spite of his knowledge, neither of us has any kayaking experience to speak of, so we wanted to test them out on the lake before we took them to a river. Kyle says once you get in the river you have to commit to it, because it’s a lot harder to get out. I would have said lets go for it anyway, but he’s Mr. Safety with stuff like this.
But next time, we’re going to go on the Elm fork of the Trinity River. It’s the only river really close to here, and it’s not actually very fast either. It should be better than the lake though, and at least more exciting. Kyle wouldn’t let me paddle out past the little white buoys. *pouts* I paddled right up to them and touched them though.
It was funny. We got in, got used to them, turned in some circles. I paddled out to the buoy and poked it. Then we paddled over to the next one (these are pretty far out, by the way) and touched it too. Kyle tried his kayak-roll successfully… very impressive. And then we looked at each other and were like, “Now what?” What do you do on a near-still lake when you can’t go past the first line of buoys? “Wanna go back?” “Kind of.” “Me too.” So we left.
Totally worth it, though, because Kyle got to use his awesome new roof rack and his fancy rubber car mats. And we got practice with those particular boats. Next time: Niagra Falls, full-force!
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