Kids and Kayaks

I must first apologize for not posting anything recently. Remember those shiny new outboards? Well, they needed to be serviced after 20 hours of use and that just happened to fall in the middle of boating season. We were out of the water for a couple of weeks.
We took my niece (age 12) and nephew (age 15) on an overnight trip this past Saturday and Sunday. We anchored in Sue Creek - site of the infamous derecho storm - with a few other boats. No storms this time. Just good ole fun in the sun. But what do a 12 and 15-year-old do on a boat for 24 hours? Adults relish the relaxation time. We float in the water with a beer in hand and not a care in the world. Teenagers need to do stuff. So, when they weren't busy texting their friends, they were using the inflatable kayak or our friend's paddle board.

We bought the kayak years ago. It served as our dinghy before we bought a zodiac. It's a Sea Eagle and it is rated for white water. When it's deflated it is a nice compact roll that we are able to store under the seats. The oars come apart into two pieces for easy storage. And it blows up relatively quickly. Poor Doug, I had gone downstairs to get the camera Sunday morning to take a picture of the kayak for the blog. I had failed to tell Doug what I was doing and he pulled the kayak out of the water to deflate it for the ride home. It was mostly deflated when I came back up top but he kindly re-inflated it for me.

The wind picked up on the ride home Sunday. I estimate that the waves were 4-5 feet. We felt like we were in a trawler because we couldn't go over 8 knots for about an hour. We still got wet when the bow went right into a wave. But we made it home safely and we are ready for our next adventure.