Fun With Yaks

No, I'm not talking about the fuzzy, Tibetan cow-like thing. I'm talking about kayaks. If you know me, you know that I enjoy whitewater kayaking, even though I haven't actually been in a whitewater kayak for about five years, and I haven't made a bona fide whitewater run for even longer. But whitewater kayaking is still something I enjoy, and I'd welcome the opportunity to run some whitewater in the future.

The primary reason, by the way, that I no longer kayak is because my whitewater peers have all quit. More specifically, my annual boys' trips were whitewater trips for a few years, but one by one, everyone quit for various reasons. Eventually, I quit as well. Partially because it's not as much fun to paddle alone, and partially because it's not as safe. Either way, the result was the same. My kayak, paddle and spray skirt started to collect a serious amount of dust.

Over the winter, another friend who also happened to kayak, gave me her whitewater boat, spray skirt and paddle. She suffered an injury that prevents her from returning to whitewater, and she said she'd rather give it to someone she knew than sell it to a stranger.

Since then, my girls have been asking me to teach them how to kayak. In fact, they started asking me about kayaking back when I actually used to do it, but they were too young then. Now, they're a little older and I have a second boat, so I gave them their first lesson yesterday... teaching them the Eskimo roll. Neither of them completely got it, but they both made a tremendous amount of progress, and the three of us had a grand old time just putzing around in the water.

Maybe next summer I'll take them on a real trip.