I joined another group of BASK kayakers for "butt surfing" in Bolinas again this Sunday. I'm doing this so often now that it hardly bears reporting any more unless something interesting happens. The interesting thing this week was noticing a surf kayak in the bushes behind the public restrooms at the tennis courts in Bolinas. This is a Wilderness Systems Kaos 'kayak'. It looks like a fat surfboard with a dent to sit in and thigh straps to hold you on. It even has three little shark-fin skeggs like some surfboards.
I think the Kaos was there the last time I was in Bolinas but I didn't pay much attention until I noticed it was still there weeks later. It had been there so long that it had been rained on, mud and leaves had pooled in the seat, and then had time to dry out. I looked the boat over when I arrived and again when I was done surfing. It was not very well hidden in the bushes behind the restroom because a trail from the far end of the tennis court ran close to it. Why did someone abandon it here? Why has it sat here for so long?
I pondered these questions while surfing, while putting my street clothes back on, and while stopping for a pint at a Bolinas watering hole with a few other kayakers. One thought was that it had been stolen and then abandoned there. I decided to drag it home and put a "kayak found" notice on the BASK email list server. If nobody replied, then I would end up "owning" a kayak specifically designed for surfing! But I feared someone was going to see me hauling that boat out of town so I was in a hurry to get it stowed. I threw it in the back of my truck to get the job done quickly instead of tying it on top. The kayak was longer than I thought and it had to go forward over the passenger seat. It whacked into the windshield of my car and cracked the glass! Even if I don't get to keep this boat, it is turning out to be expensive already.
Unfortunately I was having troubles with the new email list server and was unable to put this announcement up right away. The boat sat around in my yard for two months before I got around to reporting it. I felt so guilty about forgetting to report it found that it almost seemed easier to just keep it for my own! When I finally did report it found, Dave Martin (a kayak dealer) offered to try to track the hull ID number through the manufacturer. He found that Wilderness Systems is very disorganized and could not tell me which dealer had sold that boat or whether or not the owner had turned in the registration card. At the time of this writing another month has passed with no responses so I guess I have another kayak.