This weekend I went on an overnight paddling trip from Deep Cove up Indian Arm with my adventurous friend Jana. We planned to take a canoe, but after looking at her 2-door, roofrack-less Honda Civic hatchback and then looking at the big red canoe, we decided that we were unlikely to all make it over the bridge intact. Thankfully, I'm lucky enough to have friends at my old office who let me borrow a brand-spanking-new inflatable 2-person kayak! We threw it in the trunk with some paddles and our mass of canoe-camping gear and we were off...
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| Step 1 - Inflate the Boat |
- It doesn't come with a pump! It does include an adaptor to make a pump fit (like the k-pump that comes with the NRS Big Earl Inflatable SUP). Luckily, we noticed this before we left and snagged the pump from the SUP.
- It doesn't come with a carry bag so unless you plan on putting your wet boat back in the cardboard box, you should think about how you're going to transport/store it.
- Pumping went quite quickly after we pushed the red button to move the valves to the sealed position (not so fast before we realized this is how they work). Two people could probably get this boat set up easily within 15 minutes with a little practice. We had a pressure gauge but didn't use it since the bottom air chamber had a pressure release valve that let us know when we were at maximum inflation and it was pretty easy to judge when the sides were full (these may also have release valves - I'm not sure).
- If you're sitting in front, you're probably going to get wet! The seats are pretty close together.
- As per point 4, the optional spray skirts are a pretty important accessory - they're lightweight and velcro on to the sides of the cockpits. They work pretty well in general, but it's easy to let water pool in them then accidentally dump it into the boat when you open the spray skirt. So be careful!
- Once water gets in, you may not notice right away as it will funnel into the channels between the inflated baffles, but this also means it will all pool together in the heaviest part of the boat - we were both sitting in wet seats by the end of day 1, but I think this could have been avoided.
- Leg room is a little restricted, especially if your boat is packed with overnight gear as ours was (and we had originally packed for canoeing - not so lightly!). I'm not sure how well this boat would work for anyone over about 6' tall...
- Despite the limitations above, when you first get on the water you'll think this is the most comfortable kayak you've ever sat in! It felt very sea-worthy, though it was a little difficult to maintain a straight track in moderate waves/wind - we may have been better off without the fin, in retrospect (luckily it is removable). Though it felt a little cramped, we managed to pack in (and on top) enough gear to camp reasonably comfortably in November in Vancouver. (We had to pare down the gear rations from the original canoe-camping-just-throw-it-all-in plan though!)
- Packing up was super speedy - just release the 3 air valves, pull out the 3 cross-bars and the fin, roll it up, and throw it in the trunk of the car. Especially speedy if it has started raining and you've just been swamped by a wave while landing on the beach and you're cold and wet and eager to get into the car - boy was it nice not to have to deal with heaving a large boat on top of the car and strapping it down!
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| Step 2 - Load her up and put on your skirt! |
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| Step 3 - Find a good place to camp and carry your ultra-lightweight boat right up to your tent |
Scenes from the trip...
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| Fire! |
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| That tent is a lot bigger than that boat! |
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| A calm morning |
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| There are some great campsites in Indian Arm - we originally planned on Twin Islands, but ended up at Bergs |
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| Better packing for the trip back - a large bag on the front deck made paddling tricky on the way in |
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| No rain! |
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| In fact, almost some sun! |
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| Mossy cliffs.. |
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| Sun again.. |
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| I wore my hood on the way back for protection from the drops on Jana's paddle |
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| Next time I'd choose a shorter PFD if possible to avoid some of that water pooling on the sprayskirts |
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| We found a waterfall, even though we didn't make Granite Falls |
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| Here's the packed up boat (minus the crossbars and fin, but they could be rolled up into the package above), sprayskirts, and k-pump, after drying overnight in my hallway |
