Release Date 12/29/2019

I finally got my new Kayak in the water in Indonesia.

On Christmas day the kayak trailer I had commissioned finally showed up at our house. It took about 2 months but it came out really nice.

On the first test I sheared the connecting bolt off of the hitch, but we replaced it with another bolt, and more importantly added a bunch of rubber that would allow the hitch to twist on the back of the bike rather than stress the bolt. This seemed to do the trick and its working well.  I just went local with it, and got a LOT of laughs and weird looks from the local but I got to the water!


Im a bit worried that wheels are not attached well enough, but its hard to tell how much stress is on it.

The paddle itself was short just an hour to test it out.



Returning to beach in light surf.

One problem is my spray skirt wont stay on it, but im hoping the skirt that came with the boat will work better. My skirt is for a sharp glass kayak coaming.

The boat paddled ok, its about the right length easy to turn and handle in the surf, but still ok on speed. Im a bit worried about the quality of the seat and rudder assembly, but time will tell.

We put up some of our new wooden spearguns on the wall as art!

Kate made this cool batik for me.



These butterflies appear to be doing a mating dance:



Truth: shocks help

Release Date 12/8/2019

We were rock garden paddling in Baja Mexico at La Bufadora south of Ensenada.

This amazing Taco stand in Ensenada is a must on each trip. 

The trip was organized by Jen Kleck who runs the annual baja kayak fest event. We usually go in the Spring when it is a bit warmer, but the weather was just perfect this trip, in the 60s and low 70s, although it was a bit windy on one day. 

This is a great location and it was my third trip down there for this fun and challenging location. Like last spring the weather was rainy and cloudy, with heavy actual rain on a few of the days.  This is very unusual for this desert location, but since it was pretty warm and we were wearing drysuits it was not a big deal.

It was a smaller group than in the past, and I really enjoyed the ability to paddle and more importantly hang out with friends. We had some great meals. The only problem was we ran out of IPA beer with one day to go, but we made due to alternate arrangements.

The coastline is amazing for miles in each direction

The timing didnt work for camping on the Todos Santos Islands, but we took a motor boat ride out there, and then paddled back home.

These two lighthouses are the main feature of the island. The one on the right is quite old.

This doggie works on the island and loves to be picked up!

 

I felt pretty good for the whole trip, just a touch of back and shoulder pain on some of the bigger days when we did more features or the long paddle back from the Island.

Truth: You can not put 10oz into an 8oz glass.