The Trouble with Kayaks

H. has a new hobby. 

A few months back, while walking to the train station, we happened upon a kayak lying on its side with a sign - " Free Kayak." Oh neat, we thought. H. stopped and took a look and soon the owner of the kayak came out and starting chatting. He told us the free kayak came with a whole bunch of extras - paddles (three for some reason), life jackets (or, er, "jacket") wet suit, dry bags etc. We decided to take it and said we would pick it up soon. H. did so himself a few days later and that is when the trouble started. 

Apparently, one kayak is not enough. Not nearly enough. The kayak owner told H. that he had two other kayaks, but they were for sale. Both were folding ("Oh cool!" thought H.). One was a two-person kayak - it was 30 000 yen - and the other was a one person kayak - 50 000 yen (that would be $300 and $500 roughly). What happened next was a promise made to return to buy the 30 000 yen kayak. A few days after picking up that kayak (which we lugged home on foot - heavy!), the kayak seller told us that the two-person kayak was only 20 000 yen (it was his son's kayak and there had been a mistake), so he would give us 10 000 yen back. Money back? Excellent! Now we can buy the other kayak, too!


Now, that was not my excitement. That was H.'s. I mean, I love to kayak (although I prefer canoeing), but three kayaks? It seemed (and still does a little) a mite excessive at the time. 


We have taken the kayaks out...twice. After wrestling with the two-person folding kayak on several occasions (on the street in front of our apartment, getting many a strange look), we finally took it out to a river in Okutama. There is a dam and the area just above it is quite lake-like. We had a good paddle and then noticed that there was quite a bit of water coming in. H. has made it his free-time activity to strip off all of the old taping and re-fix the bottom of this kayak, a French-made Nautiraid, for anyone who's interested. Often, coming home from work on an H. day off, I am momentarily overwhelmed by the smell of glue.


The other folding kayak, a blue, Canadian-made Feathercraft, is also in dire need of repairs. It's skeleton is metal (the Nautiraid is wood - so...heavy...), and very light, but the elastic inside (think tent poles) has lost its elasticity and is rather, well, floppy. H. hasn't started work on it yet. In fact, I don't think we have even successfully put it together yet - the fabric has shrunk and it's just so tight! 


I wrote that we had taken the kayaks out twice. The other trip was with the little red kayak (the original). It has a plastic shell and is a river kayak, so it's short and stubby and turns uber-fast. H. had a tricky go of it the first time out as he wasn't used to the unsteadiness. I wasn't either, but got the hang of it quite quickly and had a blast in the calm waters above the dam, though H.(who has started to read websites and books about kayaking) loves to tell me that the way I'm sitting, with my knees up, is just terrible form. *sigh* I don't care - as far as I'm concerned, once you know how to kayak, you can break the 'form' rules and sit however you please. I wouldn't do it in white water (actually, I wouldn't kayak in white water as I don't know how), but in calm water? Why the heck not?!
 
We took the little guy out during wisteria season and the area around the river was gorgeous. The purple you can see in the pictures is the flowers.