: Here is another consideration that I never really thought about until
: recently, and mentioned to a marine engineer ... that is the salinity of
: the water. As expected, vessels will hold more (weight) in salt water than
: fresh. It might at first seem trivial, but in reality he said that it is
: material, as boats going up a river fed bay have to do some serious
: calculations about how much water they are drawing as the salinity
: changes. Anyone ever notice this in a kayak?

The difference in weight between a cubic foot of fresh water and salt water is about a pound. That's one pound out of 62 or so, or about 1.3%. With a bigger boat (ocean liner or supertanker) the difference in bouyancy of the water would be of greater significance that with a kayak.

With a boat designed to weigh in around 215 pounds, (that's under the weight of 4 cubic feet of water) your difference is only going to be 4 pounds. That is about the weight of a typical fast food lunch, or a 6 apck of cold beverage, or a freshly caught fish.

So, when heading from fresh to salt water, eat, drink, and fish. What more is there to a simple life?

PGJ