Doug

Congratulations to you and Paige on completing a beautiful kayak, and another successful parent-child bond-building boat build!!

And thanks again to Tom Yost for his website and very generous help in making it all available.

kelly t

The 65+ degree day yesterday had me begging to go kayaking. My first
: challenge came on Saturday when my daughter flat-out refused to consider
: kayaking on Sunday. For the better part of a few hours, I acted like I
: didn't hear her and simply told everyone that we were going kayaking. We
: finally talked about it over dinner - why didn't she want to go kayaking?!
: She said that she didn't want to go until the decorations + pretty
: princess stuff were on the boat. I rationalized with her that we weren't
: taking it out, we were doing "sea trials" to make sure it was
: waterproof and that if we waited until after the decorations that we'd
: possibly have to damage the "pretty stuff" in fixing any
: waterproofness issues.

: Apparently I finally sold her on kayaking. It was an all day endeavor. But,
: we had our christening of the boat around 12:30 and launched shortly
: after.

: I launched her first - stern first because of the outriggers. It was a muddy
: shoreline - her boats gotten it's first slime and muck in, on and all
: around it. After the obligatory photo shoot - I handed over her paddle and
: slide her backwards. The first couple of paddle strokes brought her right
: back onto the bank. We talked (extremely briefly) about how to make it go
: backwards. She backed out, turned and headed up the river! Wait! Wait! I
: don't have my paddle assembled nor was I fully ready to launch.

: As I was sliding my boat down to the water's edge, she called over (full of
: excitement), "Daddy! I'm stuck on a log!" "Well, paddle
: backwards off of it." "No... OK." I got distracted by my
: paddled and launching - the next thing I know, she's by the shore/launch
: again.

: The outriggers worked better than I could imagine. I did wrap one of my cam
: straps around the outriggers and under the hull. They worked well enough
: that she could lean as far as she wanted and there was no risk of capsize.
: In fact, she didn't understand why she couldn't sit on the back deck and
: paddle (she could have - she wouldn't have capsized, I was concerned for
: her sliding off and the water was COLD!).

: We had lunch on a nice muddy spot along the shore. I was hoping for a nice
: rocky shore line, but hunger won. I had the wonderous joy of sinking
: shin-deep into muck. Lunch was good, snacks were good - being out there
: with just Paige and I was great.

: After lunch, she fished for a while and we started to head back. By this
: point, it was getting to be close to 4pm and the temps had dropped a bit.
: She told me she was cold, so we pulled up to the muddy shore again where I
: dug another shirt and a fleece blanket out for her. I towed her back -
: but, I certainly didn't mind!

: It was a good day - we got a couple of compliments on the outriggers, the
: boat and comments that we were lucky to be out there together. Too right.