blueeyes
ephemeral excursionist
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2012
- Messages
- 1,110
Yesterday the weather here in IF was off and on rainy with severe weather warnings. Not the ideal day to try my new to me kayak for the first time. But the goal wasn't to paddle, the goal was to see if I could load and unload the kayak by myself and successfully make it to desired location with out losing the kayak. I have always had nightmares of driving down the road and losing my bike off the back of the car and now I can have the same nightmare but replace the bike with the kayak!
I did get the kayak loaded with out any issue. Awkward...that is what I will say. The entire time I was loading the kayak I watched the clouds billow up over Ririe reservoir. So I decided I would just drive over to Sportsman and pick up my invasive species sticker and come home and unload the kayak. Goal accomplished not really fun but it would test my tie down work. While I was at Sportsman's the heavens opened up and poured!! I honestly wasn't ready to give up. I looked at the radar and we were under severe weather warning until 2:15. The radar showed an open window of decent weather from about 1:30 to 5 over the reservoir. New decision because really need to test the kayak at higher speed than driving through the neighborhood.
Rain continued all the way to the reservoir. But sure enough there were blue skies headed my way. The rain passed over just as I pulled into the lot. This lot is on a hill but one area they have designated for handicap parking and it is flat right by the water. I chose to unload in the handicap spot because I envisioned all kinds of problems trying to safely unload the kayak on a hill! I got it off and next to the water parked the car in an appropriate spot and took to the water.
It was a nice little paddle. This kayak has a rudder which is a luxury I haven't had before. I do like this addition! I did get sprinkled on for a bit and was on the water for about an hour before the dark clouds started rolling in and sound of thunder sent me and another boater back to the dock. Which was a good choice because it started down pouring again as I finished up strapping the kayak to the top of the car. I did have one casualty this time while loading the kayak. I broke the mostly useless rear wiper off the back.
Oops
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I did get the kayak loaded with out any issue. Awkward...that is what I will say. The entire time I was loading the kayak I watched the clouds billow up over Ririe reservoir. So I decided I would just drive over to Sportsman and pick up my invasive species sticker and come home and unload the kayak. Goal accomplished not really fun but it would test my tie down work. While I was at Sportsman's the heavens opened up and poured!! I honestly wasn't ready to give up. I looked at the radar and we were under severe weather warning until 2:15. The radar showed an open window of decent weather from about 1:30 to 5 over the reservoir. New decision because really need to test the kayak at higher speed than driving through the neighborhood.
Rain continued all the way to the reservoir. But sure enough there were blue skies headed my way. The rain passed over just as I pulled into the lot. This lot is on a hill but one area they have designated for handicap parking and it is flat right by the water. I chose to unload in the handicap spot because I envisioned all kinds of problems trying to safely unload the kayak on a hill! I got it off and next to the water parked the car in an appropriate spot and took to the water.
It was a nice little paddle. This kayak has a rudder which is a luxury I haven't had before. I do like this addition! I did get sprinkled on for a bit and was on the water for about an hour before the dark clouds started rolling in and sound of thunder sent me and another boater back to the dock. Which was a good choice because it started down pouring again as I finished up strapping the kayak to the top of the car. I did have one casualty this time while loading the kayak. I broke the mostly useless rear wiper off the back.
Oops
Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
