Friday, 7 a.m., I hear Chuck stirring and get up. Chuck shares coffee, I have milk and peaches again, break down the camper, then we pack up and are off. Mike and Tom follow in Mike’s pickup.
I have a new inflatable kayak that’s going to have it’s maiden voyage today, so Mike, Chuck and Tom set off to the ocean while I dragged the kayak over to the Navarro river to try it out.
New Kayak Good Things: it’s really portable, pretty light, stable (really stable) and easy to set up.
New Kayak Bad Things: Lots of foot pumping to fill it. Not having much of a keel and no rudder, it’s kind of squirrely in the water, requiring constant attention to keep going in the desired direction. Overall, a keeper, the Good Things outweigh the Bad Things and I may be able to rig a rudder; I’ll have to look into that.
I dragged the kayak over to the ocean and launched into the surf – easy. I paddled out and found – kelp. And more kelp. And around the corner – kelp. I have never seen so much kelp. Paddling out to where I think the ab divers went, I discovered that being dressed for diving is pretty much overdressed for paddling. Duh. After stripping off some layers, and venting a lot of steam, I went looking for the dive team.
I paddled through a nice sea arch and then found the divers. They’re having a tough time because off all the – kelp, but everyone eventually limited out; Mike and Tom headed for shore while I stayed with Chuck to get his last abalone. At that point, I suggested to Chuck that he th
row his catch onto the stern of the kayak and throw himself on the bow, and we paddle in instead of swimming. At first Chuck thought he’d rather swim in but then reason prevailed (save energy for the next dive!). Somewhere in here it might have occurred to me to think about the weight limit for my one man kayak, but it didn’t – the good news is that when Chuck climbed aboard (a distinctly less iffy proposition than in our hard sided two-man sea kayak) we didn’t sink, in fact, the kayak absorbed the load handily. Good to know.
Chuck and I got to shore quickly, I took the boat back in and deflated and stowed it then it was back to camp.
At camp, I found Josiah’s skateboard and determined to learn how to ride it. I eventually got good enough to roll down a hill and around a corner, and even rode it twice around the campground, but after 3 hard falls on the asphalt decided to take a rest. Later I noticed the kids had invented a new game – lay on the skateboard, grab a rope attached to a bicycle, and go flying. Wow, I gotta get me some of that. There may have been beer involved. Anyway, lying on a skateboard, rolling along with your eyes 8 inches from the asphalt, hanging on to a rope and steering around corners by leaning, all the while having no brakes is quite a hoot. Eventually, I was giving rides on my back on the skateboard to Haley, who couldn’t quite get the hang of turning the skateboard on her own. I have to say this would be in the top 10 funnest things so far this year.
At some point, I became the engine on the bike pulling the kids around the campground loop, and we were getting bolder and faster. Haley was riding with her brother Bobby, “faster, Ranger Rick”, and they didn’t quite make a corner and Haley got a pretty nasty scrape, bigger than a quarter on her hand below her thumb. Pretty traumatic, but about 10 minutes after Dr. Julie bandaged the scrape, Haley was back in the saddle.
We stopped for dinner, as usual there was too much to eat but all good – off to bed.
Continued tomorrow…