Wednesday, July 25, 2007

What a Difference a Day Makes!


Success! In my efforts this morning online trying to find a local place to install a roof rack system for a canoe on the truck I discovered that The Canoe King of New England was a mere 4 miles or so away from us here at Silver Lake. some things are just meant to be. So we drove on over and ended up finding a kayak which suited our needs perfectly and did not require anything other than a traditional Yakima rack on the truck. The kayak is a Native Watercraft Ultimate 16 footer which seats two and has room for Rudy to ride with us as well. We came back to the lake and jumped right in to test her out.

Our first endeavor in the craft was pulling up alongside the little island out front of the cove here to eat wild blueberries right off the bushes while sitting comfortably in our seats. Because of this we decided to christen the kayak "The Blueberry." Don't let the fact that she is olive green worry you. It's The Blueberry.

Getting used to kayak paddling takes a minute. You feel like a real clumsy idiot for the first 1/2 an hour but then it starts to get easier. We went around the cove and into the river and back. Rudy slept like he was dead on the floorboard for most of the trip so it was pretty uneventful for him. The cool thing about this particular craft is this... you can stand up in it. Not the case with pretty much any other kayak or canoe. The hull is constructed with an indentation that gives more stability in the water. We tested it out and it's true... you can totally stand up in it.




Billy could even set up a small easel in this kayak and paint in it if he really wanted to. It's gonna be a great addition to our traveling show.

3 comments:

StefRobrts said...

Your blog is so depressing! And I'm stuck here at home!

Ok, congrats, it looks like great fun! One question, how hard is it to get that thing up on top of the truck?

Anonymous said...

I think Rudy is very fortunate with his name considering that you named your green kayak "The Blueberry."

Bethany said...

Stef.... I will answer the "How hard is it to get it on the truck?" question once it has actually been tackled. So far we have only taken it OFF the truck. The guy we bought it from helped load it on for the ride home. Unloading did involve a few moments of panic on my part but we managed.

Michelle... Don't forget we do tend to call Rudy "Doo Doo" and "Tootis" so I don't know if he should be considered all that lucky.