For your uses, your size, and your needs, you could do far worse than the Tern 14. It is actually a boat you won't outgrow--some people use these kayaks in fairly large open ocean conditions--surfing and rock garden play!

6'-6", 190 lbs, size 14's, and I still fit (and like) the Tern.

Scott already said it, but it bears repeating--if it's light enough to cartop easily, it will be your boat of choice, and you will be more likely to go kayaking more often because of it.

Shawn

: My wife and I had the pleasure of recently kayaking on the Colorado river
: below the Hoover damn. We had never kayaked before, and immediately fell
: in love with it. Now we want our own kayaks. The problem is, my wife will
: need to be able to get a kayak up onto the car by herself at times. One of
: those 50 lb plastic jobs just isn't gonna cut it (I may even have trouble
: with one of those).

: I am intrigued by the possibility of building a couple of the wooden kit
: kayaks. The Pygmy Arctic Tern 14 "looks" like it might do, and
: would easily fit on top of my wife's Civic.

: Q1) How different is a sea kayak compared to a non sea kayak like the slow,
: heavy Loons we were in on our trip?

: Q2) We plan on kayaking on lakes, slow streams, saltwater inlets, swamps, and
: the like. No whitewater, and no open ocean. I was looking at the Folbot
: foldables, but my impression from reading about these is that they are
: very slow. Am I wrong about that? If not, then would a pair of Arctic Tern
: 14s be right for us, or would they be too unstable for a couple of
: novices.

: I'm 5'8", shoe size 8. My wife is 5'7", shoe size 7 1/2.

: I am no where near anyplace where I can test drive various kayaks, so I've
: gotta use my best guess as to which ones to purchase.

: TIA