August 7, 2006
We bought a 2-man kayak about a month ago and we've been using it a lot. Being both enthusiastic and foolish, I've taken it out by myself twice here on Higgins Lake. The first time was okay.

The other bit of advice they warn you about is that wind is not the friend of the kayaker.

It was windy today, but the water looked reasonably calm. I--again, note how the word "foolish" appears regularly in this case--went out alone and began kayaking with the wind at my back. Gee, I was flying. The wind was stronger than I thought and the water had a nice rolling, regular wave pattern to it, moving me right along.

So after a good twenty minutes I was close to the eastern shore, checking out the big houses and decided it was high time I returned. Yeah. Well, strong wind, one or two-foot waves... had a hell of a time turning the kayak around. Couldn't do it to my, er, starboard at all because of the wind and wave pattern, so I tried it to my, er, port and finally after a struggle got myself pointed back into the wind, facing the waves.

Quite exhilarating, pounding into these waves, my big butt in th back of a too-big kayak that was now back heavy, so the nose pounds on every wave, ka-bam! ka-bam!. Hell of a lot of fun until you discover that if you take any kind of a break, the wave and winds turns you automatically to your, uh, starboard and you're blowing back the way you came...

But still, I was muscling it along, then I got shifted to my, hmmm, starboard, and I'm getting blown toward shore and I'm probably a half mile or so from my destination and by god I'm going in the wrong freakin' direction and pretty damned fast and I can't get the kayak turned around...

Well, I do eventually, and the closer I get to shore the more control I seem to have (sort of), and my 20 minute ride with the wind and waves at my back took my 41 minutes to return for a total 61 minutes kayak ride.

Since I live in Michigan I decided two things. One, I won't take this kayak out on the Great Lakes. If I go off the shore of Lake Michigan around Ludington or Leland I could end up in Green Bay, Wisconsin by accident. And two, if I'm ever really stupid, I would try the ocean and could find out what it's like to drink my own urine and eat my shirt... (Okay everybody, sing along with me: "...a three-hour cruise...")

Probably a PS for this is to stick my cell phone in a baggie and carry it with me, so if I get tired enough and end up on shore somewhere I can just call my wife to come pick me up.

But I DID have fun.

Best,
Mark Terry